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The Electoral Connection and the War of the Future:
Congressional Responses to Military Interventions in Kosovo and Libya
Hannah M. Solomon-Strauss
Senior Thesis in Political Science
Haverford College
Haverford, PA
20 April 2012
This thesis was very much a product not just of my own work, but also of all of those
who helped me along the way.
I want to thank my adviser, Professor Zachary Oberfield, for helping me through this
process. I know I didn't make it easy, but I enjoyed every step of the way. Thank you for your
patience and good humor.
Professor Barak Mendelsohn and Professor Philip Streich were instrumental in getting
this thesis off the ground, encouraging me to focus my question in particular ways and offering
insights and resources throughout the process. I owe Professor Mendelsohn in particular for encouraging me in my first political science class ever and putting me on the right track for the
next four years.
I want to thank my parents for their continued support and guidance. I'm so lucky you
still read my papers. Thank you for your help, not just on this particular project, but for
everything that helped me get here in the first place.
I owe all my friends for their outstanding patience in dealing with me through this
process. I enjoyed our conversations about our papers over lunch and your help rehearsing
arguments. It is not an overstatement to say that anyone who listened to me during this process
helped push me on my way. I appreciate all of your support.
And finally, at the risk of sounding trite, I honestly could not have completed this thesis
without all the support I got from my community. This thesis really is the culmination of all my
studies at Haverford, and I owe much to my professors and classmates. It was a true privilege to
work with all of you for four years. There was never a dull moment. The level of seriousness and
rigor, experienced in true, fun Haverford fashion, is something I will miss.
Thank you all for everything.
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Acknowledgements
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I. Introduction
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II. Literature Review
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Application: Election Cycles
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B. Alternatives to Mayhew
Application: Ideology and Partisanship
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C. Synthesis
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A. The Electoral Connection
Application: Rally-Round-the-Flag
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1. Kingdon
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2. Burgin
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III. The Cases
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A. Kosovo: Operation Allied Force
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B. Libya: Operation Odyssey Dawn
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C. Congressional Responses
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IV. Explaining Senate Action
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A. The Question
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B. Research Design
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The Most-Similar Design
Measuring The Independent Variables
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The Dependent Variable: Senate Actions and Senator Positions
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C. The Rules of the Game: What Drives Senate Action?
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V. Conclusion
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Appendix
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Appendix A: Senators, Positions, Involvement
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Appendix B: Newspapers
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Appendix C: Electoral College Maps
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Bibliography
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I. Introduction
The military don't start wars. Politicians start wars.
--William Westmoreland
There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare.
--Sun Tzu
War is hell.
--William Sherman Tecumseh
An old dictator in a far off land kills thousands, or tens of thousands, of his own people in
a desperate attempt to cling to power. This country is small, measured by population, size,
importance on the international stage, or all of the above. The violence splits the country not just
along political lines but also along ethnic and cultural lines. The United Nations has declared the
events to constitute a war crime and has taken steps toward authorizing, or demanding,
international intervention. This country perhaps has some natural resources, but the American
foreign policy elite does not necessarily consider it an essential ally or an important domino in
regional politics. After much public hemming and hawing, the President invokes some
combination of the War Powers Resolution and UN approval and decides to deploy troops to
contribute to the international effort. In cooperation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO), he primarily uses air strikes and a no-fly zone; through these actions he mostly, or
entirely, avoids putting boots on the ground. Congress is displeased: ranking members of the
opposition party appear on news shows and suggest that the President is subverting the
Constitutional order by deploying troops without the express consent of Congress. The
opposition party holds hearings and threatens to cut off funding for the war. After some time, the
dictator is deposed and the President claims victory.
In 1999, the President was Bill Clinton, who intervened in the genocide in Kosovo and
was opposed by the Republican-led 106th Congress. But 1999 was not the only time this scenario
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came to life: In 2011, Barack Obama was the President; he intervened in Libya and was opposed
by the 112th Congress, featuring a Republican House and a closely-divided Senate. Obama may
see this scenario play out again, as intervention in Syria becomes a serious possibility.
This may be the new face of American warfare. After the collapse of the Soviet Union,
ethnically diverse superstates began to dissolve, sometimes violently, as in the case of the former
Yugoslavia. And without a rival power to contest the United States, the long-standing bipolar
nature of the international system deteriorated, in favor of, as some have argued, American
hegemony (Krauthammer 1990). The U.S. has been waging these "limited wars" for years-previously, they were "justified as a response to Soviet aggression" (Samples 2011, 3). After the
collapse of the Soviet Union, a new rationale came into play, but the practice did not change.
The practice did not change in part because of the balance of power immediately after the
end of the Cold War. The U.S. was particularly strong compared to the rest of the world when
Yugoslavia dissolved into genocide and NATO quickly implemented a UN-mandated no-fly
zone; Russia had not yet emerged from the wreckage of the Soviet Union and was not
challenging the United States. Shortly after the millennium, the United States became involved
in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in response to the September 11 attacks. Not yet over, the war in
Afghanistan is the longest war in American history; the war in Iraq lasted eight years. The
American public has become increasingly war-weary, especially when those wars involve large
troop deployments to hostile territory. More than two-thirds of Americans now say they believe
the United States should not be Afghanistan anymore (Bumiller and Kopicki 2012). The
American public was essentially indifferent to Obama's intervention in Libya (Pew Research
Center 2011). But this weariness does not necessarily extend to all conflicts. Fifty-three percent
2
of Americans say they would support military action against Iran if evidence were found of a
nuclear weapons program (Mason 2012).
The international system, over the course of twenty years, went from a bipolar rivalry
between the United States and the USSR, to U.S. hegemony; the system saw the return of Russia
and the rise of China, which may, one day, threaten U.S. dominance. Since the collapse of the
Soviet Union, regional powers have become increasingly important and, especially in the
aftermath of September 11, the international focus on saving state capacity and preventing failed
states was redoubled. With this context in the international system, the United States became
involved in Kosovo and in Libya; this may be how the United States comes to be involved in
Syria. This may be the war of the future.
The international context and domestic politics have both contributed to the war of the
future. The sometimes pro-war American public that is nonetheless wary of large-scale troop
deployments makes air strikes and no-fly zones an attractive option for politicians to consider.
The international context in which the United States, as hegemon, can almost (but not entirely)
be involved in other states' affairs as it sees fit allows the President a broad range of possible
actions. Especially if wars continue to be framed as humanitarian interventions, there may
always be both international and domestic support for the United States' actions.
The increased use of drones is just another part of this war of the future. A CIA-operated
program, the use of drones (also known as unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs) in combat
operations need only be reported to the Congressional Select Committees on Intelligence; these
programs are not subject to scrutiny by the public (Mahanta 2011). The Obama administration
has dramatically increased the number of drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, even though there
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is no discussion of whether the United States is technically "at war" with either of these states
(Miller 2012).
The war of the future is, then, a war waged in a particular way, in a particular
international context, and with a particular kind of justification. It is waged with air strikes, a nofly zone, or perhaps just with drones. The war does not garner as much attention from the public
as wars have historically because, given how the war is being waged, it has little effect on the
U.S. population. The war of the future is likely fought against a country that does not pose an
existential threat to the U.S. and that probably (although not certainly) does not directly threaten
U.S. territory or U.S. citizens.1 That is because the United States is far more likely to have
interests in regions across the world, and to act on those interests, than it is to be attacked or to
have to respond to such threats to its own security. Globalization is tightening bonds between
states in such a way that state instability is a significant threat to others. Thus states that may
become greater international powers, Russia and China among them, have a vested interest in the
United States remaining strong and powerful; states have an interest in the United States helping
them defend against rogue states and non-state actors. For these reasons, while some form of
"existential" warfare remains possible, limited interventions like those in Kosovo and Libya
seem far more likely.
The war of the future also seem likely to raise difficult domestic issues between the
President and Congress. The U.S. Constitution has been called an "invitation to struggle" (Crabb
and Holt 1980) because both Congress and the President have been vested with some war
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categories of "existential" wars and "non-existential" wars are somewhat imprecise, as are the categories of
wars of necessity and wars of choice, respectively. The Afghanistan war after 9/11 is generally considered a war of
necessity; the Kosovo and Libya operations were wars of choice. Even if "existential" is not always literally the case
because the U.S. is not fighting for its survival, it is possible to make a distinction between wars that respond to, or
avert, significant violence directed at U.S. territory or U.S. citizens, on the one hand, and, on the other, conflicts in
which the U.S., without being directly provoked, involves itself.
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powers: the President is designated Commander-in-Chief, but Congress is given the power to
declare war and the power of the purse. Thus the back-and-forth of the two branches can
represent a tactical game as the Executive aims to preserve his power to command wars while the
Legislature struggles to preserve its role in the process.
The war-making process is also complicated by an increasingly unclear definition of
"war". Though the United States has used force abroad over three hundred times since its
creation, it has declared war only five times (Hendrickson 2002, 1). The extent to which
Congress has attempted to play a role in these decisions--as opposed to deferring to Presidential
action--has varied over time, as has the degree to which Congress has been successful in limiting
the President's powers (Fisher 2004; Hastedt 2011, 169-171). In 1973, Congress passed the War
Powers Resolution (WPR) over President Nixon's veto, in direct response to what it saw as
massive Presidential overreach during the war. With the exception of Carter, every President
since Nixon has declared the WPR to be unconstitutional and an infringement on his prerogative
as Commander in Chief (Damrosch 2000; Lindsay 1994, 149).
"The WPR requires to the President to do the following:
1. 'In every possible instance,' consult with Congress before committing U.S.
troops in 'hostilities or into situations where imminent involvement in
hostilities' is likely
2. Inform Congress within 48 hours after the introduction of troops if there has
been no declaration of war.
3. Remove U.S. troops within 60 days (or 90 days in special circumstances) if
Congress does not either declare war or adopt a concurrent resolution
approving the action" (Hastedt 2011, 150).
There is a vast amount of literature on what contributes to Presidential action. Though the
Constitution requires Congressional approval for war, this has not, of course, always stopped
Presidents from acting unilaterally. In particular, Mayer and Price (2002) find that "new
Presidents recapturing the White House" and Presidents "who lack strong popular support" resort
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to Executive Orders, and other unilateral powers, more frequently than do Presidents "operating
amid partisan continuity" and popular Presidents (380). There is also a more specific literature
that seeks to identify specific factors that influence a President's decision to go to war. Some
have argued that the strength of the domestic economy is crucial (see, for example, Fordham
1998). Others have argued the decision depends on which party controls Congress (see, for
example, Howell and Pevehouse 2007). And, of course, the threat posed by the foreign state can
affect this decision.
I will examine not the President's decision but instead analyze what happens after the
President has decided to go to war. How does Congress respond, and why? In particular, I will
examine Congressional--specifically, Senatorial--responses to the interventions in Kosovo and
Libya, precisely because, as I have argued, those interventions seem likely to be the template for
future military actions by the United States. Can we identify the factors that will cause members
of Congress to support, or oppose, the President's decisions to undertake such interventions?
In 1974, David Mayhew wrote The Electoral Connection (which he revised in 2005), in
which he argued that members of Congress, first and foremost, are concerned about reelection
and that this explains their behavior. But it is not clear that Mayhew's thesis applies to foreign
policy decisions. This is because scholars have shown repeatedly that foreign policy is less
salient for voters than domestic policy (Almond 1950 was one of the first to make this argument;
for a review of the literature, see Lindsay and Ripley 1992). Wars of the type waged in Kosovo
and Libya may be less salient than other kinds of military actions because of their limited impact
on the domestic economy and society. What role will the electoral connection--the concern that
members of Congress have for their own reelection--play in their response to interventions like
those in Kosovo and Libya?
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future?
In an effort to answer this question, this thesis will proceed as follows. First, I will offer a
review of the literature, in which I will review and criticize Mayhew's argument. I will also
explain and critically examine the so-called "rally-`round-the-flag effect," which is, in a sense, a
specific application of Mayhew's argument to foreign policy questions. I will then consider an
alternative model--that members of Congress act in an effort to create good public policy, even if
such an action is damaging to their electoral prospects. And I will discuss what are, in effect,
attempts by John Kingdon and Eileen Burgin to synthesize the two competing accounts.
Second, I will offer a brief history of the two cases, the U.S. military operations in
Kosovo and Libya. I will try to show the ways in which, given the international context, these
two foreign policy issues presented similar questions for U.S. foreign policy.
Next, in the research design, I will describe how I propose to examine Congressional
responses to the Presidential decisions to intervene in those two cases. I will examine, in
particular, United States Senators. Thirty-nine Senators who were in office at the time of the war
action in Kosovo were still in office when President Obama intervened in Libya, and they will be
the focus of this study. I will attempt to explain the positions that these Senators took on both
Kosovo and Libya and how active they were in advancing these positions. While there were, of
course, differences between Kosovo and Libya--no two international situations will ever be
exactly the same, especially when they are separated by a number of years--the issues that
Kosovo and Libya presented for U.S. policy were remarkably similar. This similarity enables me
to conduct a kind of natural experiment: given those strong similarities, how can we explain the
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That will be the focus of this thesis. Does the electoral connection hold for the war of the
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actions of Senators who behaved differently in the two cases--either by taking opposing positions
or, perhaps, by participating much more actively on one issue than on the other?
I will argue that, judging from the behavior of Senators, the electoral connection theory,
although must be refined in the context of this kind of military action, does hold for the war of the
future. That is, American politics does not "stop at the water's edge": electoral calculations affect
Congressional decisions even on this crucial category of foreign policy votes. I reach this
conclusion by analyzing the actions that these thirty-nine Senators took in response to the
Kosovo and Libya interventions. I propose a series of rules that account for the behavior of these
Senators, both those who maintained the same position and those who changed their positions.
The natural experiment does not allow me to reach definite conclusions about what influenced
the behavior of the Senators who acted in similar ways on Kosovo and Libya. I can say, though,
that their behavior was consistent with the electoral connection thesis. But the actions of the
Senators who changed their behavior between Kosovo and Libya provide strong support for the
electoral connection theory--although that theory must be modified to take into account the fact
that members of Congress respond to more than one constituency.
The conclusion will summarize my findings and offer a look into the future, with an eye
on predicting Congressional responses to wars not yet waged, perhaps including an imminent
venture in Syria.
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A. The Electoral Connection
There is a vast literature on Congressional behavior. What causes members of Congress
to vote the way they do, and, more broadly, to take the actions they take? The answers to these
questions overlap, but they can usefully be placed in a few broad groups.
To begin with, David Mayhew's now famous claim in Congress: The Electoral
Connection is that, first and foremost, members of Congress are concerned with being reelected.
This fact can, according to Mayhew, explain much of the behavior of members of Congress
(MCs). He makes this argument on a few different pieces of evidence.
First, he argues, Congressmen clearly seek reelection; it is not a job MCs serve for a term
or two before retiring voluntarily. "It seems fair to characterize the modern Congress as an
assembly of professional politicians spinning out political careers. The jobs offer good pay and
high prestige. There is no want of applicants for them. Successful pursuit of a career requires
continual reelection" (Mayhew 2005, 15). But simply because MCs seek reelection does not
make this their primary goal. As Mayhew notes, "Of course the answer is that a complete
explanation (if one were possible) of a congressman's or anyone else's behavior would require
attention to more than just one goal. There are even occasional congressmen who intentionally
do things that make their own electoral survival difficult or impossible" (15). But ultimately,
Mayhew concludes, reelection "has to be the proximate goal of everyone, the goal that must be
achieved over and over if other ends are to be entertained" (16).
Having determined that MCs seek reelection, and that this is their proximate--and, at least
in that sense, primary--goal, Mayhew then asks whether MCs are in a position to do anything
about their chances for reelection. Otherwise, that it is their first concern would have no bearing
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II. Literature Review
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on behavior. He concludes that, yes, it appears that MCs have an "ability to affect the
percentages in their own primary and general elections" (33). More importantly, MCs "think that
they can affect their own percentages...and furthermore there is reason for them to try to do
so" (33).
Mayhew also responds to the "safe seat argument." This is the argument that because so
many MCs are reelected year after year with high percentages of the vote, they do not,
realistically, have to fear losing an election. These MCs would not have to engage in reelectionmaximizing behavior. Mayhew shows that the percentage of these so-called "safe seats" was
continually declining (33), at least at the time he wrote. Perhaps more important, he points out a
flaw in this argument. When discussing safe seats, the question is not "how probable it is that
legislators will lose their seats" but, instead "whether there is a connection between what they do
in office and their need to be reelected" (37). Because, after all, it is not "Congressman Smith"
who is himself unbeatable; "rather we mean, Congressman Smith is unbeatable as long as he
continues to do the things he is doing" (37). Thus the point about safe seats is mostly irrelevant;
members are in safe seats because of how they behave and this continued behavior will keep
them in office.
Mayhew harbors no illusions about the electorate. As other scholars have done, he points
out that "the average voter has only the haziest awareness of what an incumbent congressman is
actually doing in office. But an incumbent has to be concerned about actors who do form
impressions about him, and especially about actors who can marshal resources other than their
own votes" (40). It is possible, then, that the MC who is looking to be reelected need only be
concerned with a very small sliver of the population because the electorate is mostly uninformed.
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enough to mobilize, and those who are capable of mobilizing a great deal of resources.
This last point illustrates the rather fluid nature of a constituency and suggests a critique
of the Mayhew theory. As Mayhew himself acknowledges, "'relevant political actor' need not be
a constituent; one of the most important resources, money, flows all over the country in
congressional campaign years" (39). Thus, while a MC may change her behavior in order to
appeal to a particular constituency and thus increase the chances of reelection, it is not always
her particular geographic constituency to which she is appealing. The 2012 election cycle is
demonstrating this exact phenomenon: Elizabeth Warren, running for Senate in Massachusetts, is
receiving a significant proportion of her campaign contributions from California and Hollywood
donors (Goodnough 2012). Especially in the post-Citizens United campaign, a MC's geographic
constituency seems to matter less and less. To focus purely on a Senator's geographic
constituency to explain behavior would be to ignore the pervasive influence of money in politics.
It seems an especially relevant point on foreign policy votes which, though less salient to the
average voter, are highly salient to particular groups of voters. "For example, Rep. Helen Delich
Bentley's (R-Md.) efforts on behalf of Serbia following the collapse of Yugoslavia won her more
than $80,000 in campaign contributions from Serbian Americans" (Lindsay 1994, 41).
Even Mayhew's conception of the geographic constituency can be refined further.
Richard Fenno (1978) argues that there are four concentric circles of constituencies. In
increasing order of tightness (or closeness to the MC), these are: the geographic constituency (all
possible voters); the reelection constituency (those likely to vote for the MC); the primary
constituency (those who will work for the MC); and the personal constituency (family, close
friends, advisers). Thus two MCs could serve the same geographic area--as Senators do--and still
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The MC must only be concerned about those who are aware of her actions, those who care
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technically respond to electoral incentives from different constituencies. Fenno's addition to
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Thus, the Mayhew hypothesis is that MCs act in ways to maximize the chances of
reelection.
Application: Rally-Round-the-Flag
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The rally-`round-the-flag effect (RATF) can be seen as an application of the electoral
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connection thesis to foreign policy decisions. The rally-`round-the-flag thesis is the work of a
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public opinion-based school of thought that argues that, in times of crisis, the public--and, as a
result, the Congress--"rallies" to the side of the President. The "rally" comes in the form of an
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approval rating bump among the public and increased legislative success in Congress. John
Mueller (1970) is credited as the first to specifically define the RATF effect, saying that "certain
intense international events generate a 'rally round the flag' effect which tends to give a boost to
the President's popularity rating" (21). Muller quotes several other scholars who have noticed
this effect, too: "Kenneth Waltz has observed, 'In the face of such an event, the people rally
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behind their chief executive. Torn Wicker: 'Simply being President through a great crisis or big
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event...draws American together in his support.' ... Nelson Polsby observes, 'Invariably, the
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popular response to a President during international crisis is favorable, regardless of the wisdom
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of the policies he pursues' (21).
Mueller then defines the "rally event" that sparks this bump in the President's approval
ratings. "In general, a rally point must be associated with an event which 1) is international and
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2) involves the United States and particularly the President directly; and it must be 3) specific,
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dramatic, and sharply focused" (21). Finally, Mueller argues that there are good and bad rally
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favorable to the President" and bad points are events where "the initial favorable surge could be
expected to be rather transitory" (22). Mueller gives the example of the Cuban Missile Crisis as a
good rally point and the Bay of Pigs crisis as a bad one.
The subsequent RATF literature expands upon Mueller's arguments. Bowen (1989)
aimed to explore why public opinion "rallied" to the President's side in times of crisis. He
concludes that "in moments of international crisis, mass opinion is malleable in many ways. In
such specific moments, measurable mass opinion appears to have altered to show (1) great
support for decisive military actions, (2) heightened support for presidential policy positions
unrelated to the crises" (794). Thus Bowen concludes that the rally effect happens because of
"malleable" public opinion in times of crisis. Public opinion then comes to the President's
support, not just on issues related to the crisis, but on other issues, too.
Lee (1977) also aims to explore why the approval bump occurs. His explanation is more
specific, and it attributes the rally effect, at least in some circumstances, to rational behavior on
the part of members of the public who are making decisions on the basis of limited information.
Thus one explanation for the rally effect, he says, is that "the public tends to support a
Presidential action (or inaction at times) regardless of its content, when there is not enough
information for evaluating the situation" (253). And because there is a "generally favorable of
image of the President in American politics," the default reaction is to support the president
(253). However, the President's "increased popularity due to swelling of attention is likely to
vanish when the level of attention subsides" (253). Another possibility is that "the President
becomes the focus of national attention in times of crisis or other major international events,
symbolizing national unity and power" (253). This echoes Mueller's initial observation. Lee
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points. Good rally points are events where the "lasting effect on opinion was likely to be
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argues that "the President is likely to appear to be at his best in the average man's eye when he is
dealing with international affairs, and this explains the rather sudden increase of approval" (253).
Hetherington and Nelson (2003) draw from both Bowen and Lee, arguing that Lee is
explaining why rally effects occur in the first place, and that Bowen is explaining why they
might continue for a period of time. Hetherington and Nelson offer their own definition of the
rally effect, which is not very different from Mueller's: "A rally event is the sudden and
substantial increase in public approval of the president that occurs in response to certain kinds of
dramatic international events involving the United States" (37). Then Hetherington and Nelson
argue that there are two mechanisms by which the rally effect works. First, because of
patriotism. "This school holds that in times of international crisis Americans rally to the
president as the anthropomorphic symbol of national unity--a kind of living flag" (37). This was
Lee's argument; he had argued that "the average man's reaction will include a feeling of
patriotism in supporting presidential action, a desire not to hurt a President's chance of
success" (Lee 1977,253).
The second mechanism is opinion leadership. This relates to Bowen's argument. Simply
because opinion is malleable, why must that necessarily result in supporting the President? And
how long is this characteristic likely to last? The opinion leadership theory argues that when
opinion leaders are unwilling to criticize the President, journalists have nothing to report--and
citizens have nothing to learn--that is not supportive of the President. Brody (1991) has also done
research on this question; he argued that the President benefits from rally events only when
"opposition opinion leaders...refrain from comment [on the president's conduct] or make
cautiously supportive statements" (quoted in Hetherington and Nelson 37-8). When there is
nothing but positive press for the President, Brody says, "the public will be given the implied or
14
well' (66). Thus, as Bowen would say, public opinion has been molded by the lack of another
point of view into supporting the President.
Hetherington and Nelson argue that while the "opinion leadership school seems less
persuasive than the patriotism school in accounting for the origins of rally events, it goes a long
way toward explaining the duration of rallies once they occur" (38, emphasis in the original).
Patriotism explains well the origin of rally events because of the place the President occupies in
American politics. "The explanation lies in the constitutional design of the presidency, which
lodges the normally separate roles of chief of government and chief of state in one office...As
chief of state, the president is the equivalent of the British monarch: the ceremonial leader of the
nation and the living symbol of national unity" (38). As Lee argued, in times of crisis, the
president can be seen as an anthropomorphic representation of the flag, an image that people
wish to support, apparently out of patriotism.
But this patriotic inclination does not last forever; "the passage of time brings more
sober-minded public evaluations of the president's performance as chief of government...As
Brody suggests, these evaluations are shaped in large part by the willingness of opposition
leaders to criticize the president's conduct" (Hetherington and Nelson 2003, 39). As the news
media begin to cover some of this opposition, the rally effect fades. This is Bowen's argument:
opinion is malleable, and so long as it is being pushed in toward the President (either directly or
de facto because there is nothing else to report), the rally effect will persist. In fact, the rally
effect can spread to issues beyond the particular question of the crisis; this is the patriotism
argument. But once opinion leaders resume their criticism of the President, the rally effect will
tend to fade.
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explicit message, 'appearances to the contrary not withstanding, the president is doing his job
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Thus the rally-`round-the-flag school of thought argues that, in times of crisis, the public
will rally to the President's side, boosting his approval ratings. But how does this affect
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Congressional behavior? If the public is more likely to support the President after rally events,
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the more popular the President is, the more support he will have in Congress (221). "Over the
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long run annual average popularity and annual support scores...should tend to rise and fall
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together" (225). Zeidenstein goes one step farther, arguing that, apart from Eisenhower,
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does this mean that Congress will follow suit? Zeidenstein (1980) makes this link, arguing that
"Presidents' support rises and falls with their popularity, and it makes relatively little difference
which party controls Congress" (227).
Thus, the rally-`round-the-flag school of thought applies the electoral connection to
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questions of foreign policy: in times of crisis, Congress will be more supportive of the President's
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agenda because MCs are sensitive to shifts in public opinion, and public opinion will rally to the
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President when there is an international crisis.
The RATF theory can be complicated to apply to wars like Kosovo and Libya. There are
two further questions to consider when trying to discover whether a President has benefited from
a rally effect. The first is the question of sequence. At the first rally point, the public may eagerly
and easily rally to the side of the President. Perhaps this will occur for a second rally point, too,
but as time wears on, if crises continue to occur, it is not clear that the public will continue to
rally. There are two sides to the question of sequence and the literature does not always make the
distinction. The first is whether the public is weary of being called to rally by a particular
president, and so the effect begins to wear off; the second is whether the public is simply war
weary and no longer has the same patriotic responses to threats and the beginnings of wars,
regardless of which President they are being called to support. There is evidence that, by the end
16
of his Presidency, George W. Bush's no longer enjoyed a rally effect though the nation was still
at war. After all the casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, the public no longer rallied to his side the
way it once had (Eichenberg, Stoll, and Lebo 2006).
The second question is the issue of wars of necessity versus wars of choice. In
international relations, scholars speak about states feeling an "existential security threat" from
another state and so being driven to war (Lieberfield 2005, 5). The rally literature seems to speak
directly to situations like this: when feeling threatened from an outside source, the people rally to
the side of the president. Certainly Pearl Harbor was such a case. The Cuban Missile Crisis was
also considered an existential crisis. In fact, it could be argued that this fear of a threat outside
our borders shaped many Congressional responses to the President during the Cold War
(Krauthammer 1990; Samples 2011, 3). This is the second condition of the RATF definition;
crises must involve the United States directly.
But after the Cold War ended, the United States was left as the only hegemon. "With the
disappearance of the Soviet threat the rationale for many foreign policy programs
evaporated" (Lindsay 1994, 1-2). Without the policy of containment occupying "the lodestar of
U.S. foreign policy" (Lindsay 1994, 1), Presidents were given much more freedom in foreign
affairs. One consequence was that Presidents were more likely to engage in "wars of choice"-that is, wars that were waged for reasons besides feeling an existential security threat from the
other state. Such reasons could include morality (in the form of humanitarian intervention) or to
ensure continued access to a particular resource (such as oil). Whether, and how, Presidents still
enjoy a rally effect as a result of a war of choice is yet to be settled by the literature. One way
scholars have attempted to reconcile this difficulty is by simplifying the rally theory.
Fundamentally, the theory argues that the President's popularity--which increases because of the
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war--makes him hard to oppose. Boylan and Kedrowski (2004) argue that "members may be
reluctant to vote against a popular president, or one who is considered an effective leader, even if
they disagree with his policies" (541). In this version, even if the nation is not rallying because it
feels under attack or threatened, when a President starts a war, his approval ratings soar; this
happens because the country is guided, perhaps by the media and opinion leadership, to see him
as an effective leader. This is one way in which the rally theory can be adapted to explain
Presidential popularity in non-existential crises.
Application: Election Cycles
Another application of the Mayhew thesis is offered by Miroslav Nincic (1990). Nincic
argues that the cycles of elections in the United States can affect foreign policy. In this way, he
modifies the Mayhew thesis to argue that the electoral connection is stronger in proximity to an
election, and weaker at other times. Specifically, he argues that in the year of the actual election-the fourth year in an election cycle--politically expedient policy-making increases tremendously
(375). Because members need to be seen to be upholding campaign promises, these actions
continue through the first year of governance But in the years between elections, attention to the
politics of decisions can fade. Nincic also argues that second-term Presidents are less likely to
make decisions based on politics, given that they have no more elections to win. By this same
calculus, logically Senators who are retiring can feel free to make decisions based on other
factors--some of which will be discussed shortly--and not on the basis of politics.
Nincic's arguments have two implications. First, the motivation for a Senator's vote can
be partially explained by understanding when that Senator is up for reelection. As Fenno (1974)
has argued, foreign policy does not make good politics in "bread and butter" districts and
members may find it hard to run on their achievements in foreign policy (12). An election year
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between elections. Second, Nincic's arguments suggest that Senators who are retiring are more
likely to vote their conscience and less likely to vote in a political fashion. This can be used as a
control vote of sorts, indicating a Senator's true opinion, and can be compared to other votes that
were perhaps cast under electoral pressures.
B. Alternatives to Mayhew
Mayhew's thesis has yet to be decisively overturned by the literature on Congressional
behavior. Almost any scholar will concede that members of Congress must be concerned, at least
to some degree, with their reelection prospects. This was Mayhew's argument about proximate
goals. But as even Mayhew recognized, members sometimes vote in ways that are in opposition
to the views of their constituents--behavior that, logically, should not maximize their chances of
reelection. The question then is how to explain this "anti-Mayhewian" behavior. One principal
account in the literature is that this behavior can be explained by looking to MC's view of "good
public policy." That is, rather than doing what their constituency wants, MCs sometimes do what
they think is right, even if it increases the risk that they will lose their job.
Richard Fenno (1973) is an author who argues that good public policy can drive MC
action. Fenno argues that Representatives have three main goals: "re-election, influence within
the House, and good public policy" (1). He interviews various Representatives to understand
their motivations for their actions and divides the interviews by committee assignment. He notes
that committee membership is not itself an end for members; rather, "each member of each
committee wants his committee service to bring him some benefit in terms of goals he holds as
an individual congressman" (1). Each member's opportunity to reach these three main goals
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may make members act in a more Mayhewian manner, leaving good policymaking for the years
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varies between committees, and members match "their individual patterns of aspiration to the
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diverse patterns of opportunity presented by House committees" (1). If a member is not initially
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assigned to a committee that matches her own goals, she will transfer to one that is a better
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match.
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By asking "why did you want to get on this committee in the first place?", Fenno
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discovers patterns that unite the motivations of members of each committee. He finds that the
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Appropriations and Ways and Means committees are marked by a desire for "power, prestige,
4110
and importance" (2). He finds that members of the committees on the Interior and the Post Office
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are motivated by being able to serve their constituents and thus better ensure reelection (5). He
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also finds that members of the Education and Labor, and Foreign Affairs committees are
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motivated by "a strong personal interest in and a concern for the content of public policy in their
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committee's subject matter; in short, they want to help make good public policy" (9).
Notably, members on the Foreign Relations committee mentioned frequently that their
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interest in that committee not only did not help their electoral prospects, but were possibly
counter to those interests. "Majority opinion was expressed by one member who said:
'Politically, it's not a good committee for me. My constituents are interested in bread and butter,
and there's no bread and butter on Foreign Affairs' (12). Members did not see the foreign
relations committee as furthering a career beyond the House, except perhaps for one particular
career: "from 1947 to 1967, eleven members left Foreign Affairs to run for the Senate" (13).
Fenno also discusses the ways Senators view their committee assignments. "Senate
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Foreign Relations committee members emphasize the same longstanding interest in foreign
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policy that motivates Foreign Affairs members...None of the eight Senators interviewed
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mentioned reelection benefits" (141). In fact, Senators generally agreed with Representatives
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Senators did break with Representatives and mention that they were attracted by the "prestige" of
the committee, though "none claimed that this prestige could be translated into an extra measure
of personal influence in the Senate, and none asserted that the desire for inside influence led him
to the Committee" (141). Thus Fenno argues that, along with a proximate goal for reelection,
some Senators do have a goal of making good public policy; this goal is frequently found among
members of the Foreign Relations committee in particular.
Some of Fenno's claims certainly seem to continue to hold true despite the passage of
time. There is no indication that foreign policy has become any more relevant for the average
voter and these committees offer no more political benefit than they once did. The Senate
Foreign Relations committee does seem to maintain its prestigious reputation; then-Senator
Obama sought membership on the committee in advance of his Presidential run, as had many
presidential-candidates-to-be before him (142). Fenno's actual argument is a bit limited because
of the committees he examines but it seems fair to extrapolate his general argument that MC
committee assignment roughly parallels personal opinion and ambition. Thus, though Fenno
does not discuss the other foreign policy-related committees--such as the Intelligence or Armed
Services committees, and, today, the Homeland Security committee (which did not exist when
Fenno was writing)--his argument can be applied to the Senators who serve on these committees
as well.
Fenno intends his argument to complement, rather than contradict, Mayhew's claim. Like
Mayhew, Fenno recognizes that reelection is a concern that motivates members' actions. Fenno
takes the analysis one step further, arguing (as Mayhew does not deny) that a singular focus on
reelection is likely unrealistic. But some key questions remain. "Good public policy" is a bit of a
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that, politically, the Foreign Relations committee was not a good committee to be on (141).
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black box. Is it possible to explain how members come to view a particular decision as good
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public policy? And, perhaps more important, is it possible to say when the electoral connection
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will dominate--so that the member will be influenced primarily by constituents' views, rather
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good public policy rather than her constituents' views?
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than her own views of good public policy--and when the member will follow her own views of
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Application: Ideology and Partisanship
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One way to explain what members come to view as good public policy may be member
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ideology. While ideology is tied to the electoral connection because constituencies are more
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likely to elect MCs whose ideology they find agreeable, a member's ideology may not coincide
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with her constituents' in every respect. Another possible explanation of members' "public policy"
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views is partisanship, which is related to, although distinct from, ideology. Members may vote
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against their constituents' views--and in favor of what appear to be (and what they may profess
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to be) their own views of the best policy--because those are the views of their party as a whole,
or the party leadership.
There is a substantial literature that argues that partisanship affects the response of
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Congress to Presidential war making. Mayhew (2005) notes that Democrats and Republicans
vote differently, and Uscinski et al. (2009) have found that party affiliation determines positiontaking behavior (490). Miller and Stokes (1963), Overby (1991), and Bartels (1991) all find
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ideology to be an important influence on MC voting behavior in Congress. The argument in
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Krehbiel (2000) also does not seem to be inconsistent with this conclusion. Krehbiel argues that
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partisan voting should be attributed to different preferences--which include ideology--rather than
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to "party discipline, party cohesion, party strength, or party government" (225).
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closely parallel the overall voting divisions in Congress. "In the 1940s and 1950s cleavages on
defense and foreign policy cut across party lines. As liberal Republicans and conservative
Democrats have become more and more scarce in Congress, cleavages on foreign and defense
policy have increasingly coincided with party lines" (Lindsay and Ripley 1992,429; see also
Lindsay 1990, 1991b; Trubowitz 1986). This is "a development paralleling greater partisanship
in Congress in general in recent years" (Lindsay and Ripley 1992, 429; see also Patterson and
Caldeira 1988). Hastedt argues that the clearest sign that Congress will be obstructionist toward a
president's foreign policy is that Congress and the presidency are controlled by different parties
(167). Further, party leaders seem to affect voting behavior. Some have found that the party
leadership gives the president more support on foreign policy issues than rank-and-file MCs
(Hayes et al 1984), though others have found this effect to be lessened in recent years (Lindsay
1987, 1991a; Smith 1989).
The link between this literature on partisanship and the ideology school of thought is the
recent increase in polarization in Congress. Nearly any study of Congress today will show that
the polarization in Congress is at unprecedented levels. Franklin Roosevelt's Democratic Party
included both Northern and Western liberals and conservative Southern segregationists (Foner
1998, 195). Similarly, the Republican party included progressives who were significantly more
liberal than the conservative Democrats (Kennedy 1999,219-20). But beginning in the
mid-1960s, the parties became increasingly homogeneous. When Lyndon Johnson signed the
Civil Rights Act into law, he famously said that, with his signature, he had lost the South for the
Democrats for a generation (Economist 2010). Johnson's prediction did not come true
immediately, but eventually Southern whites moved into the Republican Party, making the
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As partisanship increases generally, divisions on foreign policy issues seem to more
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Democratic Party more liberal, and fewer liberals found a home in the Republican Party
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(Patterson 2005, 78-79). "Voters have sorted themselves out so that their party affiliation and
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their ideology are far more aligned now than 30 years ago: thus, most self-identified
conservatives are Republicans, while liberals are Democrats" (Pildes 2010, 3). While there is a
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serious question whether U.S. citizens have "sorted" themselves geographically into politically
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homogeneous communities--as Bishiop (2008) argues--there seems to be no dispute that the
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parties have become more homogeneous ideologically. In response particularly to Bishop,
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Fiorina and Abrams (2012) argue, "political science research has shown that during the past three
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decades, party sorting has occurred--liberal-minded Americans have increasingly made the
Democratic Party their home, and conservative-minded Americans have gravitated to the
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Republican Party" (203).
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ilk
Public opinion polls show the dramatic change. In the Eisenhower Administration, the
gap between support for the President from voters of his own party and support from voters of
the other party ranged from 22-39 points (Pildes 2010, 4). By contrast, "[t]he partisan gap in
approval ratings for President Obama [after his first year in office] is larger than it has eve[r]
been for a President at this stage;...only 18% of Republicans, but 82% of Democrats, approve of
Obama's performance--a gap of 64 points (Pildes 2010, 6). This was the culmination of a trend.
"From the Eisenhower through Carter years, this gap in one-year approval ratings never
exceeded 34 points; since then, it has averaged 48 points... Before Reagan, no President had
averaged more than a 40 point gap in approval ratings during his term; starting then, only the
elder George Bush has averaged less than a 50 point gap" (Pildes 2010, 6). Obama's second year
had an approval gap of 68 points; his second year was even more polarized than his first, already
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an historically polarized year (Jones 2011a).
24
"more elusive for presidents" (Sinclair 2003, 3) While presidents have always counted on their
party for more support than the opposition party, "so long as the congressional parties were quite
ideologically heterogeneous, the president could also expect some support from members of the
other party" (Sinclair 2003, 3). But as the parties began to drift away from each other,
ideologically, in the late 20th century, "such support has dwindled and a president confronting a
Congress controlled by the opposition faces a much harder task. Presidents do considerably less
well both on their own agenda and on major legislation generally when control is
divided" (Sinclair 2003, 3).
Sinclair makes the link between the partisanship literature and the ideology literature.
Partisanship is about the parties while ideology is about point of view; there used to be an
overlap between these two, as liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats often crossed
party lines to vote their conscience. But as polarization has increased and the parties have
become increasingly homogeneous, ideology and partisanship have come to be increasingly
similar. Those who hold similar views are, today more than ever, likely to be in the same party.
And Lindsay and Ripley (1992) have found that ideology is a strong predictor of how a member
will vote on foreign affairs (435).
This is more than an issue of divided government. With heterogeneous parties, divided
government would matter less. As Sinclair puts it, even if the President was unable to garner
enough support from his own party, the overlap between the parties would ensure that he would
have a chance to get support from the other party. But with increased polarization and ideological
purity, it is no longer a question of simply divided government, but of the ideological distance
between the President and the Congress.
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The most obvious effect of this increasing polarization is that "legislative success" is
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The increasing polarization of the political system has changed the shape of the debate on
foreign policy issues. Before the parties became homogenous, "divisions on foreign policy [used
to] cut across rather than along party lines [so] there was substantial agreement between the
president and a majority in Congress" even during divided government (Lindsay 1994, 25). Party
affiliation used to matter less, on foreign policy votes, than ideology (Boylan and Kedrowski
2004, 541). The Vietnam Era, coming immediately after the passage of the divisive Civil Rights
Act, changed everything. "Demographic shifts and the legacy of Vietnam combined to make
each political party more homogenous on foreign policy, with the result that ideological
differences on foreign policy began to fall along partisan lines" (Lindsay 1994, 26). Thus the
ideology hypothesis is different in crucial ways from the divided government hypothesis: the two
result in similar outcomes in today's politics, but only because of the ideological realignment.
The importance of this polarization is that levels of support in Congress strongly affect
whether a President will decide to go to war. In an empirical study, Howell and Pevehouse
(2007) find that "when presidents consider a major use of force abroad, the level of partisan
support within the Congress appears to matter greatly. As their party's share of the Congress
increases, presidents conduct major military campaigns abroad with increasing frequency.
Conversely, as the size of the opposition party increases, presidents act with major force less and
less often" (228). This finding is obviously relevant for those who ask questions about what
causes presidents to use force, but it is relevant for those who study the Congressional response
too. As the ideological distance between the Congress and the President increases, the President
considers the Congress less and less friendly; this fact does not change in those instances where
he does, nevertheless, decide to use force abroad.
26
furthering their own beliefs about good public policy can be applied through the ideology
literature. Ideology can explain when members choose to follow their own personal beliefs
rather than the action prescribed by the opinion of their constituents.
Good public policy can be an outsized motivator in foreign policy votes because
questions of foreign policy have reduced salience for voters. In this respect, foreign policy is
crucially different from, for example, defense policy, with which it is frequently conflated. There
have been many studies of Congress' role in influencing defense policy, but defense policy has
crucial differences from foreign policy (Bartels 1991). Defense policy better compares to
domestic policy because both have similar "pocketbook", or economic, effects on the voting
public (Lindsay and Ripley 1992, 422). The same is true of the many weapons systems studies
(Bernstein and Anthony 1974; Fleisher 1985; Lindsay 1990; 1991b; Mayer 1991; Nelson and
Silberberg 1987; Ray 1981; Rothenberg 1989). Foreign policy often lacks the easily felt
domestic consequences that defense policy has: foreign affairs are considered "not terribly
consequential in the voting booth" (Aldrich, Sullivan, and Borgida 1989, 125).
This reduced salience means that MCs can ignore public opinion--or vote against the
wishes of their constituency--on foreign affairs more safely and more frequently (Jacobs and
Page 2005, 109). "The challenge is that most voters neither know nor care all that much about
specific foreign policy issues because few of these issues have a direct impact on their
lives" (Uscinski et al. 2009, 490; also Uslaner 1999, 46). Other scholars concur: "A wealth of
survey evidence supports Almond's claim that the public is often unconcerned and uninformed
about specific events in foreign affairs" (Lindsay and Ripley 1992, 421). The relationship
between MC behavior and public opinion is not one-dimensional: just as public opinion
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The argument that members engage in anti-Mayhewian behavior when they are
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influences voting behavior in Congress, so can politicians sometimes shape public opinion. With
a relatively uninformed public, foreign affairs provide MCs the best chance to vote at odds with
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their constituencies and then to work to change opinion.
On questions of warfare in particular, there are other aspects of "good public policy" to
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examine. The WPR highlights one of these issues: MCs may have strong opinions about the
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Presidential prerogative to wage war. Boylan and Kedrowski (2004) argue that there are two
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"interpretive camps": the Presidentialists and the Congressionalists. The Presidentialists tend to
allow the President freedom in foreign affairs, and tend to look "askance at efforts to usurp the
40
commander-in-chief's power when U S military forces were placed in harm's way" (542). The
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Presidentialists are opposed by the Congressionalists. These MCs claim that the Constitution
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gives Congress the "sole power to make war" (542). They claim that the President's power is,
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and should be, "subordinate to the people's (read: Congress's) will, therefore Presidents must
seek congressional authority before initiating any military actions abroad" (543). Whether a MC
is a Congressionalist or a Presidentialist does not seem to depend on ideology but is more similar
to personal views of public policy. A MC's grouping into one of these categories may partially
explain voting behavior, just as views of good public policy can.
C. Synthesis
If all of these factors--maximizing re-election chances; ideology; partisanship; and
perhaps some other, free-standing beliefs about good public policy--can influence MCs'
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behavior, the question is then whether it is possible to identify the circumstances in which one of
these influences is likely to prevail over the others. That is, is it possible to synthesize the
•
Mayhewian and non-Mayhewian claims? Some authors--although they do not describe
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attempt to synthesize these views.
1. Kingdon
John Kingdon's book, Congressmen's Voting Decisions, discusses all the factors that
affect a MC's decision on any given vote. He has a list of some such influences: constituency,
fellow congressmen, party leadership and ranking members, interest groups, the administration
and the Executive Branch, staff, and the media. While none of these elements is expendable and
all need to be considered to truly have a picture of the decision making on any given vote, the
constituency is a key factor. The constituency is the vital group for all the reasons that Mayhew
highlights, and Kingdon repeats some of these points. "The constituency is the only actor in the
political system to which the congressman is ultimately accountable...No other segment of the
system has quite the same potential for negative sanctions as does the constituency" (Kingdon
1981, 29-31).
Kingdon explains three ways in which the constituency is central to understanding MC
behavior: MCs must define the constituency, understand its opinion, and react to that opinion.
The first challenge is to define "the constituency" to understand how it affects MC behavior.
First, the colloquial conception of "the constituency" is oversimplified. Constituencies are, in
reality, very complex and though characterized "by certain gross demographic features" it is
"also a mottled collection of many subgroups" (31-32). For example, while the majority of a
constituency might "know little about their congressman's record", there may be a subgroup
where "some constituents are attentive to political affairs" (31-32).
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themselves as having set out to provide such a synthesis--have offered theories that, in effect, do
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Second, MCs must discern the position of such a "mottled" group, which can be difficult.
Kingdon argues that MCs instead substitute a measure of intensity. Some constituents feel very
strongly about particular issues; others are more apathetic. "It is an easy inference, then, that this
constituency intensity will be reflected in congressional voting decisions. As constituents become
more intense, the congressman will weigh their opinions more heavily" (35). Understanding the
intensity of opinion is one way in which MCs are responsive to a constituency with many
interests.
Third, after MCs determine constituent intensity, they must decide how to react. Simply
understanding constituent intensity does not lead directly to a vote. Constituent intensity is
balanced with the MC's own opinion and intensity. "Actually, a congressman's decision is more
complicated than simple response, since he must weigh his own intensity into the picture" (38).
By balancing her own intensity and that of her constituency, a MC reaches a decision on any
particular decision. Kingdon represents the "situations of conflict between constituency position
and congressman's attitudes" in a chart, as follows (39).2
CONSTITUENCY INTENSITY
OWN
INTENSITY
High
Low
High
Low
Redefine conflict and/or
consider other actors
Prefer own position
Prefer constituency position Consider other actors
Fig 1.
When deciding how to respond to constituent opinion, MCs may find they need to be
especially careful when they might be in the position of voting against that opinion several times
Note that the particular actions in the boxes relate to Kingdon's argument and do not necessarily correspond with
the dependent variables of this thesis.
2
30
something, the congressman can generally afford to vote against them, on the grounds that one
vote will probably not ruin his whole career" (41). As one MC explains to Kingdon, most votes
are safe votes (41). But these votes in a "string" can cause problems. "It is possible to cast what
one congressman called a 'string of votes' against various elements of the constituency, the
cumulative effect of which could be very serious" (41). Thus Kingdon argues that, in addition to
considering constituent opinion and intensity on any given issue, MCs must also consider their
recent behavior and whether, recently, they have opposed their constituency too frequently. In
order to behave in a way that may keep their seat safer, MCs "then must not only take account of
constituency reaction to the vote at hand in isolation, but must also consider the place the vote
has in his total voting record. This consideration provides something of an incentive to vote with
the constituency most of the time, in order to save deviance for matters that count" (42-43).
Thus, Kingdon aims to synthesize competing influences on MC action. On the one hand,
constituent intensity greatly affects MCs who are concerned about reelection; however, MCs do
act contrary to constituent interests at times, and this action can be explained by understanding
MC opinion.
There are important factors to consider when applying Kingdon's arguments. First,
Kingdon primarily studied the House, and his conclusions could be different if applied to the
Senate. Running only once every six years, with a much larger and more diverse (and less
gerrymandered) constituency, Senators are likely to be subject to very different pressures than
Representatives.
The Senate may afford one advantage when extrapolating Kindgon's thesis. He argues
that MCs consider their colleagues when deciding how to vote, and that opinion leadership
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in a row on important issues. Kingdon argues that "even when constituents feel intensely about
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within the chamber is formative for MCs (Kingdon 1981, 72-145). Mayhew also argued that
MCs could observe their colleagues' elections and modify their behavior accordingly (Mayhew
2005, 48). This may be a phenomenon that occurs to better effect in the Senate where members
are not all running for reelection at the same time. In the 112th Congress, Orrin Hatch (R-UT) has
moved to the right, creating a more and more conservative voting record, in the time since his
colleague, Bob Bennett, lost in a primary to a challenger from his right (Weisman 2012). That is,
Hatch is responding to the electoral pressures put on a colleague and modifying his voting
behavior. This type of behavior modification may work better in the Senate because of the
staggered elections.
Kingdon notes that determining constituent intensity can be difficult. This is especially
true for the case studies in this thesis: on foreign affairs, scholars have long found that voters are
woefully uninformed, even as compared to the typical voter apathy (Almond 1950; Delli Carpini
and Keeter 1996; Erskine 1963; Free and Cantril 1968; Hook 2005; Lindsay and Ripley 1992;
Lippman 1922; Simon 1974). Neither the Kosovo nor the Libya intervention involved "boots on
the ground" and, especially in the case of Libya, domestic issues tended to trump foreign affairs.
A diverse, statewide constituency could have two consequences for the Senator looking to
determine constituency intensity. A statewide constituency may make it harder to discover the
true views of the constituency, as the population is diverse and opinions may be muted. But
Senators may find that such a broad range of opinions gives the Senator more room to maneuver:
when opinions are everywhere, the Senator is listening to someone when she acts. The statewide
constituency may afford the Senator more freedom when voting.
32
Eileen Burgin argues that members face a two-stage decision making process when
deciding whether to become involved on any given issue, and she focuses on foreign policy
issues. First, members consider whether to become involved or not; second, members consider
how involved to be. She argues that constituent interest affects the first calculation, and that
personal convictions, committee assignments, and ambitions for greater discretion affect the
second calculation.
In Burgin's analysis, the dependent variable is "level of involvement", which she says has
four variations: leaders (actively involved), activists (moderately involved), position takers
(slightly involved) or voters (minimally involved) (Burgin 1991, 523).
When considering the first decision, whether or not to be involved, Burgin finds
constituency opinion to be predictive. "Having supportive constituents is the principal force
affecting whether a representative participates in an issue" (533). Thus, when a member
perceives a supportive constituency, she will be moved to action. The reverse is also true: MCs
react to disincentives from their constituency. "In no sample case did a member who perceived
supporters as a primary disincentive do more than vote. The fear of negative supporter reactions
and of the possible political ramifications of involvement inhibits even those members most
likely to participate" (534). Burgin finds that members who see a disincentive from their
constituency will be the least involved.
Thus, Burgin argues, the constituency is the most important factor that a member
considers when deciding whether to be involved or not. The next decision is how involved to be.
Burgin notes, for example, that MCs have many demands on their time (528) so mere interest
from their constituency does not necessarily produce significant involvement. Even supportive
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constituencies sometimes only push a member toward symbolic action. "In only one sample case
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did a member merely vote when perceiving a supportive constituency...Yet even when the
influence of supportive constituents engenders involvement, it tends not to beget higher levels of
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participation--a member can often satisfy the perceived incentive without extensive
activity" (533). These symbolic actions are activities that do not "require much effort, such as
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making a one-minute speech, participating briefly in floor debate, or placing a statement in the
41
Extension of Remarks" (534). Thus constituency is not the factor that determines how much a
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member will be involved in an issue.
Instead, Burgin finds that three main factors determine the depth of a member's
participation. "Once a representative decides to participate in an issue, the influence of
supportive constituents wanes in importance. The factors with the greatest impact on a member's
next decision--how extensively to participate--are personal policy interests, committee and
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leadership assignment, and the desire for influence" (535). In arguing that committee placement
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affects a member's involvement--and that personal policy interests are relevant--Burgin agrees
with Fenno that these two factors are linked and that each affects MC behavior.
Each of these three factors have different levels of importance for particular members.
41
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Personal policy interests may motivate more in-depth involvement because "when a member
personally interested in an issue participates, he or she obviously has an inventive to engage in
activities requiring more effort" (535). Committee and leadership assignments may result in
deeper participation because of "the sense of obligation due to a high post... The responsibility
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induces a member to become an activist or a leader--remaining a position-taker would not satisfy
the perceived demands of this influence" (535). Finally, "a member seeking influence may
recognize that without engaging in certain activities demanding higher levels of involvement--
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such as playing a significant sponsoring role in major legislation...--influence and power may be
unattainable" (536).
Burgin supports all of these claims with a statistical analysis. Her multivariate regression
analysis finds that "having supportive constituents...is easily the most important determinant of
involvement. Personal policy interests, committee and leadership assignment, and the desire for
influence also emerge as pivotal forces influencing a legislator's participation" (530).
Thus, Burgin synthesizes these competing influences by arguing that, given a permissive
constituency, MCs will consider their own personal opinion, committee placement, and desire for
influence, but that incentives and disincentives from the constituency are given highest priority
when considering action.
Burgin's model can be represented visually as a decision tree such as Figure 2.
Yes
Stop
Can action on this point earn the member increased discretion?
No (to all)
Yes (to one or more
Member engages in significant action
Member engages in symbolic action
Fig 2.
Burgin's project is in some ways like mine. Her subject matter is Congressional
decisions, and for the most part she is addressing decisions that are responses to Presidential
initiatives. Also, she is attempting to explain what she describes as foreign policy decisions.
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Does constituency opinion support action?
Does the member support this action?
Does the member have a relevant committee placement?
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Most important, she is attempting to synthesize the various influences. Constituent opinion
cannot be disregarded, as everyone agrees. But what else matters, and can we clarify when and to
what degree it matters?
In important ways, though, Burgin's account differs from mine. Burgin, like Kingdon,
focuses on the House of Representatives in her article, while this thesis will focus on the Senate;
Senators and Representatives are faced with different influences on their behavior. Also, Burgin
also looks at a variety of "foreign policy decisions", focusing on "aid to the Nicaraguan contras,
the increase in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) quota, MX missile funding, and the
marines in Lebanon" (Burgin 1991, 523). These decisions are not foreign policy decisions in the
way that the Kosovo and Libya decisions were. And while the Kosovo and Libya actions may
very well be, as I have suggested, a template for future American military interventions, Burgin
does not suggest that the decisions she analyzes have that kind of significance for the future. The
MX missile debate is perhaps more accurately characterized as a "defense policy" decision,
rather than a foreign policy decision, because its "pocketbook" implications will play out in a
different way in domestic politics; the same is possibly true of the IMF debate. Of Burgin's
cases, the only one that is comparable to the cases of Libya and Bosnia is the issue of the marines
in Lebanon, but even that similarity isn't very strong. Two hundred and forty-one marines were
killed in 1983 in Lebanon when their barracks were bombed (Treaster 1983), whereas a key
characteristic of the interventions in Kosovo and Libya were their nearly nonexistent casualty
counts (zero for Libya and two non-combat deaths for Kosovo) (BBC News 1999; MacAskill
2011). Logically, the question of the marines in Lebanon would be a much more salient issue to
voters than the conflicts in Libya and Kosovo.
36
and staffers' perceptions of constituent opinion. This perception could have been influenced by
MC and staffer views: if a staffer is passionate about an issue, she might attribute that interest to
constituents, especially if the constituency is not intense about this issue. Further, Burgin asked
staffers and members to recount, after the fact, what had motivated the decision at the time. This
could confound answers as members try to recreate the decision-making process, or confound
answers as members choose the response that will cast their decisions in a good light: "I did what
my constituents wanted."
Finally, Burgin's theory does not include a prediction of MC behavior if the MC feels
strongly about an issue (or has a committee placement or desires increased power) but the
constituency does not support MC action. She argues that an unsupportive constituency stops the
member's actions from continuing further. But Mayhew notes that sometimes members engage
in behavior that may actually decreases their chances of reelection, and Kingdon discusses
"strings of votes"--it seems plausible that this may be a circumstance that arrises. Lindsay (1994)
argues that constituency opinion can be considered as range of possible outcomes, rather than a
single position that must be obeyed (45), indicating that there may be some room for MCs in this
situation to maneuver. There is also much literature about whether constituency opinion is
endogenic or exogenic--that is, whether the MC can sway the constituency just as the
constituency can sway the MC (see, for example, Canes-Wrone 2006). Thus, a modified version
of Burgin's theory might look something like Figure 3.
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Burgin also does not actually measure constituent opinion. She instead measures MCs'
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Does constituency opinion support action?
Yes
Does the member support this action?
Does the member have a relevant committee placement!
Can action on this point earn the member increased discretion?
Does the member support this action?
Does the member have a relevant committee placement?
Can action on this point earn the member increased discretion?
Yes(to one or more)
No (to all)
Yes (to one or
Member engages:
in significant action
Member engages
in symbolic action
Member perceives constituency opinion
as a range and not a rule;
Metaber engages in anti, Mayhew behavior
Fig 3.
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No ( n ail)
Stop
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III. The Cases
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The U.S. military operations in the former Yugoslavia and in Libya are eerily similar. A
brutal massacre erupted in a small country, and though the violence did not constitute a direct
threat of any kind to the U.S., the U.S. intervened anyway, using U.N. authority, in conjunction
with NATO. A key feature of the interventions were the no-fly zones established by the U.S. and
NATO and the use of precision air strikes. The history of each conflict follows.
A. Kosovo: Operation Allied Force
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) was formed in 1963 as a successor
to the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia. The SFRY was made up of six Socialist
Republics: SR Bosnia and Herzegovina, SR Croatia, SR Macedonia, SR Montenegro, SR
Slovenia, and SR Serbia. Yugoslavia was led from 1945 to 1980 by Josip Broz Tito, a dictator
who worked to lessen the role that ethnicity played in the country, in part by creating an ethnicity
called "Yugoslav" and reminding the population that their ethnic linkages and ancestry were
stronger than the divisions. Starting in 1991, the SFRY disintegrated in several Yugoslav Wars
following the secession of most of the republics.
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In 1990, six republics held their first multiparty elections. Serbian Communist Party
leader Slobodan Milosevic was elected Serbian President. On 25 June 1990, Slovenia and
Croatia declared independence, and, two days later, the Yugoslav army--dominated by Serbia-attacked Slovenia ("Chronology"). By July, Serb-Croat fighting, which had been continuing
consistently since early 1991, escalated into a full-blown war. On 2 January 1992, U.N. mediator
Cyrus Vance negotiated a cease-fire for Croatia. U.N. Peacekeepers were placed on patrol in
Sarajevo in an effort to keep conflict from Bosnia ("Chronology"). But on 29 February 1992,
Bosnia-Herzegovnia declared independence, and Bosnian Serbs claimed a separate state and the
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area dissolved into war. Through April and May the conflict intensified and on 3 July, the
international airlift to Sarajevo began ("Chronology").
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On 13 August 1992, the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 770, which called for
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nations to "take all measures necessary" to enable the delivery of humanitarian assistance to
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Sarajevo (Grimmett 2012, 25). This echoed the debate in Congress; many in the Senate in
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particular "had been advocating more assistance to the victims of the conflict" (Grimmett 2012,
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25).
The conflict did not cease, despite continued efforts by Vance and the United Nations.
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The United States participated in the airlifts to Sarajevo and monitoring of sanctions by sea
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(Grimmett 2012, 26). On 12 April 1993, NATO jets began to enforce the U.N. mandated no-fly
zone over Bosnia ("Chronology"). As the fighting escalated, President Clinton began dealing
with Congress on the legal authorization for the conflict. "President Clinton consulted with about
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two dozen congressional leaders on potential further action on April 27 and received a wide
range of views. On May 2, the Administration began consultation with allies to build support for
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additional military action to enforce a cease-fire and Bosnian Serb compliance with a peace
agreement, but a consensus on action was not reached" (Grimmett 2012, 26).
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At the beginning of 1994, the war had not slowed. "At the NATO summit conference in
Brussels on January 11, 1994, leaders, including President Clinton, repeated an August threat to
undertake air strikes on Serb positions to save Sarajevo and to consider other steps to end the
conflict in Bosnia" (Grimmett 2012, 26). On 28 February 1994, U.S. F-16 fighters, flying for
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NATO, shot down four Bosnian Serb warplanes for violating the no-fly zone ("Chronology"). In
April 1994, NATO again used airstrikes to prevent the advancing Serbs from reaching the city of
Gorazde. On 22 September 1994, "two British and one U.S. aircraft bombed a Serbian tank in
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retaliation for Serb attacks on U.N. Peacekeepers near Sarajevo; and on November 21 more than
30 planes from [NATO countries] bombed the runway of a Serb airfield in Croatia" (Grimmett
2012, 27).
Just in time for the 1994 midterm elections, "leaders in Congress called for greater
congressional involvement in decisions" (Grimmett 2012, 27). The Senate debated a bill to lift
the sanctions on Bosnia; another resolution was proposed to prohibit ground combat troops in
Bosnia unless explicitly authorized by Congress (Grimmett 2012, 27). The Defense
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Authorization Act for fiscal year 1995, signed in October 1994, expressed the sense of the
Congress that the President should ask the U.N. Security Council for a resolution to lift the
sanctions on Bosnia.
In the first half of 1995, NATO continued to conduct air strikes (Fisher 2004, 185). On 25
May 1995, President Clinton informed the Congress that U.S. aircraft continued to support
NATO's no-fly zone and were available to support U.N. forces in Croatia (Grimmett 2012, 27).
In August 1995, "when Bosnian Serb forces overran the U.N.-designated 'safe area' of
Sbrebrenica, NATO carried out the war's biggest air raid" (Fisher 2004, 185). Following the
slaughter at Sbrebrenica, President Clinton reported to Congress that U.S. aircraft had been used
in a series of NATO air strikes against the Bosnian Serb army that had been threatening "U.N.declared safe areas" in Sarajevo, Tuzla, and Gorzade (Grimmett 2012, 27).
By the end of 1995, Congress was still attempting to play a role in decisions about the
Bosnian war. On 13 December, the Senate defeated H.R. 2606, which "would have prohibited
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funds to be obligated or expended for U.S. participation in Bosnia unless such funds were
specifically appropriated for that purpose" (Grimmett 2012, 29). S. Con. Res 35 was also
defeated; this was a non-binding resolution offered by Senators Hutchison and Inhofe which
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offered the position of Congress on the question of Bosnia. "This resolution stated that Congress
opposes President Clinton's decision to deploy U.S. troops to Bosnia, but noted that Congress
strongly supports the U.S. troops sent by the President" (Grimmett 2012, 29).
Though the House had also passed resolutions on 13 December, no conference committee
was assembled to reconcile the bills. The conference committee was unnecessary because "a
number of Members and Senators had wished to express their views on the troop deployment
before the Dayton Accords were formally signed in Paris. That action had occurred, and the
leadership of both parties apparently believed nothing further would be achieved by a conference
on the measures passed" (Grimmett 2012, 29).
The conflict in Kosovo intensified beginning in 1998. In spring and summer of 1998,
"tensions between ethnic Albanians and the Yugoslav security forces escalates into armed
conflict. Hundreds are killed and nearly 300,000 civilians are displaced from their
homes" (Ministry of Defense). On 16 January 1999, 45 ethnic Albanians are executed at Racak,
in Kosovo, as violence again surges (Ministry of Defense). In response, on 1 February, NATO
"reaffirms" that the organization is "ready to take whatever measures are necessary to avert a
humanitarian catastrophe" (Ministry of Defense). After peace negotiations in Paris break down,
NATO prepared for Operation Allied Force. Hours before the bombing began, on 23 March
1999, the Senate passed S. Con. Res. 21 which authorized the President to conduct "military air
operations and missile strikes in cooperation with our NATO allies against the Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro)" (Grimmett 2012, 30). On 24 March 1999, "U.S.
military forces, at [President Clinton's] direction and in coalition with NATO allies, had
commenced air strikes against Yugoslavia in response to the Yugoslav government's campaign of
42
President Clinton notified Congress of these strikes on 26 March.
As the operation progressed, the Senate continued to debate the action in Kosovo. On 4
May the Senate tabled a resolution introduced by Senator McCain which would have authorized
the President to "use all necessary force and other means" to accomplish its goals in Yugoslavia
(Grimmett 2012, 31). The Senate also tabled two amendments that would have restricted
Clinton's military operations in Kosovo.
On 25 May, the 60-day deadline imposed by the WPR was reached. Some members of
Congress argued that Clinton's actions constituted "a clear violation of the language of the War
Powers Resolution stipulating a withdrawal of U.S. forces from the area of hostilities after 60
days in the absence of Congressional authorization to continue" (Grimmett 2012, 31). These
Representatives sued President Clinton in Federal court. With the suit continuing, Yugoslavia
agreed to NATO conditions for ceasefire on 10 June 1999. The ceasefire required Yugoslavia to
withdraw its military and paramilitary personnel from Kosovo, and called for the creation of a
peacekeeping force (KFOR) which had the approval of the United Nations (Grimmett 2012, 31).
The conflict in the former Yugoslavia was one of the first of its type: an ethnically diverse
super state dissolved into genocide as outside states rushed to intervene to preserve regional
peace and security. The international context was very different between 1992 and 1999--the
time during which the crisis in Yugoslavia was confronted. Russia was only just emerging from
the wreckage of the Soviet Union and was in no place to challenge the West on the Security
Council. Russia too had interests in the Balkans--Russia is a historically very strong ally of
Serbia's as a result of their similar demographics--but was in no position to oppose the operation.
43
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violence and repression against the ethic Albanian population in Kosovo" (Grimmett 2012, 30).
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Since its execution, Operation Allied Force has provided the model for humanitarian
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interventions across the globe. Under the doctrine of the "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P), those
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in favor of intervention argued that all states have a moral responsibility to intervene to prevent
genocide. Though the doctrine is not always evenly administered (Rwanda, for example), it has
been applied with some effect.
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Operation Allied Force in Kosovo was conducted between 24 March and 10 June 1999,
with the U.S. military operating in conjunction with NATO forces, with the goal of protecting the
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ethnic Albanian minority in Kosovo. The sum total of NATO losses included six lost aircraft, 47
unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) lost, and two military causalities, suffered outside combat
operations (BBC News 1999; Chalmers 1999). The United States was involved in the war in the
former Yugoslavia almost from the beginning, but Operation Allied Force will be the focus of
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this thesis. Operation Allied Force consisted of an air campaign over Kosovo that lasted about
eleven weeks. There were no American troops placed in hostile territory during the operation and
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the only casualties were non-combat deaths.
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B. Libya: Operation Odyssey Dawn
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As the Arab Spring swept through the Middle East in 2011, Tunisia and Egypt found
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themselves embroiled in chaos as their dictators were deposed and youth rioted in the streets.
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When violence broke out in Libya, situated between Tunisia and Egypt, few were surprised. The
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15 February 2011 arrest of human rights advocate Fathi Tarbel sparked riots and anti-Qaddafi
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protests in Benghazi, Libya (Lamloum 2012). The planned "day of rage" on 17 February caused
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the violence to move to the cities as Libyan dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi, desperate to hold on
to power, escalated his attacks. On 24 February, "anti-government militias" took control of the
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coastal city of Misrata, ousting regime loyalists (Reuters 2011). On 25 February, the United
44
Security Council on 26 February (Reuters 2011), and by 27 February, NATO nations were
considering a no-fly zone (Broder 2011). On 5 March, the National Transitional Council (TNC),
based in Benghazi, declared itself the "sole representative" of Libya (Reuters 2011) and on 6
March, Senators Kerry, McCain, and McConnell appeared on the Sunday news shows to express
their support for a no-fly zone (Berger 2011).
On 17 March, the United Nations Security Council authorized the no-fly zone, increased
sanctions, and demanded a ceasefire (Bilefsky and Landler 2011). Ten nations voted in favor and
five abstained, including China and Russia; a vote in the negative by either China or Russia
would have killed the resolution. On 19 March, the first air assaults began on Libya (Kirkpatrick
et. al 2011). As March and April continued, intermittent air strikes were reported, along with the
rebels' progress through the Libyan desert. On 28 March, President Obama addressed the nation,
saying that "the U.S. had an important strategic interest in Libya, including preventing a regional
humanitarian and refugee crisis that would destabilize fragile transitions in Egypt and
Tunisia" (IISS 2011). Obama argued that American support for the rebellion would signal
broader support for self-determination and the "democratic impulses" across the region (IISS
2011). Obama said he "'refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves' before
taking action" (IISS 2011).
The U.S. and NATO continued bombing Libyan cities into April. Late in the month, a
NATO missile attack on Tripoli killed Qaddafi's youngest son and three grandchildren (Reuters
2011). On 2 May 2011, U.S. Navy SEALS killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, switching the
media's, and the country's, focus dramatically for a few weeks. But on 20 May, both houses of
Congress began to stir as the 60-day deadline mandated by the WPR passed (Savage and Shanker
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States imposed sanctions on the regime (Cooper and Landler 2011), followed by the U.N.
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2011). President Obama wrote a letter to Congress, arguing that the conflict in Libya did not
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constitute "hostilities" and thus the WPR did not apply (Obama 2011). The House voted on 3
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June to reject that argument and "rebuke" President Obama (Steinhauer 2011a). As the 90-day
deadline approached, the administration continued to defend its position. On 21 June, Senators
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Kerry and McCain introduced their resolution supporting the President, authorizing military
action in Libya, and requesting reports from the administration (Steinhauer 2011b). House
Democrats were not as supportive, and on 23 June, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned the
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caucus against defunding the war effort (Steinhauer 2011c). The Kerry-McCain resolution never
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reached the floor for a vote; it was tabled in favor of discussing the debt ceiling (Kane 2011).
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With the two WPR deadlines passed, Libya faded from public view through the summer
as politics focused instead on high gas prices and the debate over the debt ceiling. On 20
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October, Qaddafi was killed, effectively bringing Operation Odyssey Dawn to a close.
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The international politics of the conflict in Libya are clear on some questions but very
curious on others. The international effort was only possible because of Security Council
Resolution 1973, which would not have passed if either China or Russia had decided to vote no.
Instead, both abstained, demonstrating rare willingness to allow force to defend an internal
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uprising.3 Resolution 1973 was tightly worded and very carefully defined the actions that were,
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and were not, permissible. After the intervention, both China and Russia argued that NATO
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overstepped the limits set by the resolution.
Libya's oil reserves may be the explanation for the Russian and Chinese votes to
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authorize the intervention. China has been making inroads into Africa for years, and the
•
possibility of being closed off from Libyan oil fields may have been the deciding factor. China
•
•
3 Both Russia and China fear that, someday, these resolutions may be used against them. Russia fears an insurgency
from Chechnya and China is worried about uprisings from Tibet or the Uyghurs from the Xinjiang province.
111111
•
•
•
110
46
and Russia also both consider Libya a relatively marginal regional power (Patrick 2011b).
Finally, Qaddafi was universally hated by the Arab community; China and Russia, both facing
Islamic insurgencies, perhaps calculated that seeming to support Qaddafi would not bring
domestic peace and security, but that working to oust Qaddafi would be essentially costless.
For the rest of the international community, the decision to intervene was continually
framed as part of the "Responsibility to Protect" doctrine. As a result, even war-weary domestic
populations were shown a war not waged for resources or for increased power in the region, but
instead a war waged to protect innocent civilians from a brutal dictator. Qaddafi's reputation
preceded him, especially in nations affected by the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over
Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988. The Arab League's support for NATO action supported this
narrative (Samples 2011, 14).
The American domestic politics around the Libyan conflict are not as straightforward.
Democrats in the House threatened to cut off funding for the war (IISS 2011; Samples 2011, 16)
while the Senate Minority Leader outpaced President Obama by supporting the no-fly zone
nearly two weeks before it was implemented (Berger 2011). Even more puzzling, some Senators
who supported the intervention in Kosovo--substantively a nearly identical operation in terms of
the type and scale of the military action--reversed their position on Libya. These responses to
Clinton and Obama will be discussed in the next section.
C. Congressional Responses
The cases of Kosovo and Libya offer a template to understand Congressional responses
to Presidential war making, especially of this type. The cynic will argue that because Congress
has never successfully recalled troops from a war zone abroad, Congress is powerless to stop the
President from waging wars. Congress did successfully end funding for the Vietnam War (several
47
•••
•
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•••
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•
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•
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•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
times, depending on how you count), and has used the power of the purse to restrict Presidential
war making several times since then (Grimmett 2007). But the argument that 'Congress has
never recalled troops and so it is powerless to check the President in war' misses the point of
Congressional responses and poorly interprets the Presidential plan for war making. Especially in
wars that are in the grey zone of the WPR, and especially when the President is hoping not to
have to deal with WPR authorization and instead simply wage war without questioning from
Congress, the less attention the operation attracts in Congress, the better. The President's ideal
plan is one where he is given free rein to act as he sees fit and is not asked to offer any
potentially politically risky explanations to Congress. Congress's ability to check Presidential
war making comes in the form of demanding those explanations. Every speech by a member of
Congress, every resolution asking for the President to report on his war actions, takes the
operation of the war a step away from the President's ideal war plan. Congress does not have to
successfully cut off funding or recall troops to influence the arc of a war. The threat of these
actions may be enough to alter the President's behavior.
Scott (1997) summarizes neatly the universe of possible actions by Congress.
DIRECT
I.F,GISLATIVE
NON-LEGISLATIVE
Issue-Specific Legislation
Treaties (Senate)
War Power
Appropriation
Foreign Commerce
Informal Advice/Letters
Consultations
Oversight/Hearings
Use of Courts
INDIRECT
Non-Binding Legislation
Appointments (Senate)
Procedural Legislation
Framing Opinion
Foreign Contacts
Fig. 4.
48
In line with Scott's arguments, this thesis considers any action by Congress to be a
•••
deviation from the President's ideal plan. This can be seen in both the Kosovo and Libya cases.
Both Presidents Clinton and Obama were confronted by Congress over the 60- and 90-day
deadlines mandated by the WPR. Both argued for the WPR's unconstitutionality, but they were
forced to make this argument and to spend political capital defending their prerogatives. Each
action by Congress, no matter how symbolic, systematically moves the war plan away from the
•••
President's ideal.
With this background--which provides a more subtle way of understanding how Congress
responds to Presidential decisions to intervene militarily--I can now examine Senators' responses
to Kosovo and Libya in more detail.
49
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6••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
IV. Explaining Senate Action
A. The Question
The literature, as summarized above, reveals a consensus that constituency opinion is an
important influence on MC action. There is also a consensus that constituents do not pay much
attention to foreign policy issues. Foreign policy issues--true foreign policy issues, rather than
questions of defense spending--are simply not as salient for voters as "pocketbook" economic or
spending questions. Some argue that, when foreign policy issues arise, MCs are more free to
consult their own opinions and views of good public policy because these issues are less salient
for voters. So the initial question is the extent to which the electoral connection hypothesis holds
true for foreign policy.
Among foreign policy questions, Kosovo and Libya stand out as particularly useful cases
to examine. Questions of war typically mattered to constituents because of the possibility of a
"boots on the ground"--of U.S. armed forces being put at risk--but Operation Allied Force and
Operation Odyssey Dawn were waged in a series of air strikes from the safety of the sky. Some
U.S. combatants did not even leave U.S. territory but rather operated drones from domestic
military bases. If foreign policy issues are less salient for voters, conflicts like Kosovo or Libya
are likely to be much less salient than many other U.S. military actions. And, as I have said, the
kinds of military action involved in Kosovo and Libya may very well set the template for future
U.S. military interventions. That makes it particularly important to try to explain Congressional
responses to these actions.
Given all this, what explains Congress's response to Presidential war action in the cases
of Kosovo and Libya? It seems clear that the models that explain domestic policy do not
necessarily apply to foreign policy or military actions. While Mayhew and Kingdon do not focus
50
involved foreign policymaking if their constituencies support their involvement (and,
correspondingly, will not be involved if they sense a "disincentive" from the constituency). This
is consistent with what Mayhew and Kingdon say about MC actions generally. But Burgin then
goes on to argue that, once an MC is involved, the decision to be significantly involved is
explained by other factors.
Thus this thesis will examine the following questions. Does the electoral connection
explain Congress's response to Presidential action on Kosovo and Libya? If not, what does
explain MCs' actions in these cases? Is it, as some have suggested, member opinion and views of
good public policy, or are there yet more influences particular to these circumstances?
B. Research Design
I examined the actions taken by the thirty-nine Senators who were in office at the time of
both Kosovo and Libya. I focused on the Senate for a number of reasons. Senators are likely to
be more prominent national figures whose views on foreign policy will therefore be more
influential. Fenno (1973) notes the prestigious nature of the Senate, particularly on foreign affairs
(141). The Senate has two foreign policy powers the House does not, namely the ability to
confirm Ambassadors and to ratify treaties. Also, because Senators serve longer terms than
Representatives, they are more likely to develop foreign policy expertise that will make them
more influential. In addition, the Senate (typically) has less party discipline. In the House, the
decision of the party leadership, or the party as a whole, is more likely to determine individual
Representatives' votes; in the Senate, it is likely to be more illuminating to analyze the individual
decisions of Senators.
51
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
specifically on foreign policy questions, Burgin does, and she concludes that MCs will be
••
••
•
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•
S
I consider only those Senators who could have taken actions on both the question of
Kosovo and the question of Libya. Because these interventions presented similar policy issues,
•
Senators' personal policy views on the two actions ought to have been the same, or nearly so. If a
•
Senator's behavior with respect to the Libya decision is sharply different from her behavior on
•
•
•
Libya, that is a fact that requires an explanation. Because the Kosovo bombings began in March
•
1999, the most junior Senators in the pool are those who took office in January 1999. This
•
produced a group of thirty-nine Senators (G39).4 These are the Senators whom I will examine
•
because their actions constitute the natural experiment. This is not a study that can be
•
•
extrapolated in the statistical sense because these Senators are not a perfect random sample of a
•
population. I can, however, extrapolate in the theoretical sense: I will use these 39 senators to
•
•
•
develop rules that, I believe, can be applied to the chamber as a whole to explain, more broadly,
•
•
•
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"Senate responses to Presidential war actions."
The Most-Similar Design
The similarity of the two cases is important to my research design. The cases are highly
similar in many respects that are relevant to congressional response. As I have explained, the
•
•
•
international context of the decisions was, while not identical, remarkably similar. It is important
•
•
briefly compare and contrast the two cases.
to understand, however, the exact limitations of this most-similar design. To this end, I will
•
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4111,
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4 The Senators are: Akaka (D-HI), Baucus (D-MT), Bingaman (D-NM), Boxer (D-CA), Cochran (R-MS), Collins
(R-ME), Conrad (D-ND), Crapo (R-ID), Durbin (D-IL), Enzi (R-WY), Feinstein (D-CA), Grassley (R-IA), Harkin
(D-IA), Hatch (R-UT), Hutchison (R-TX), Inhofe (R-OK), Inouye (D-HI), Johnson (D-SD), Kerry (D-MA), Kohl
(D-WI), Kyl (R-AZ), Landrieu (D-LA), Leahy (D-VT), Levin (D-MI), Lieberman (D/I-CT), Lugar (R-IN), McCain
(R-AZ), McConnell (R-KY), Mikulski (D-MD), Murray (D-WA), Reed (D-RI), Reid (D-NV), Roberts (R-KS),
Rockefeller (D-WV), Schumer (D-NY), Sessions (R-AL), Shelby (R-AL), Snowe (R-ME), and Wyden (D-OR).
52
•
•
•
Both Kosovo and Libya involved an aged dictator who, in his desperate attempts to cling
to power, engaged in military attacks on his own people. Both dictators were deeply despised on
the international stage. Neither Kosovo nor Libya presented an existential threat to the United
States, in the sense that the territory of the United States was not threatened by either. Neither
Kosovo nor Libya is the sort of international or regional power that could have created a
"domino effect"--that is, a threat to the stability of a neighboring or allied nation with its
collapse. (Libya represented a more significant domino than Kosovo given that its neighbors,
Tunisia and Egypt, were undergoing their own revolutions as part of the Arab Spring). Libya
may be an important source of oil for the United States in the future but it does not appear that
••
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
this was the primary motivation for beginning military operations. The United States, in both
•
cases, relied on air strikes and the enforcement of a no-fly zone over the region in conflict; no
S
solider was placed on the ground in hostile territory during the course of either operation.
Domestically, the two cases were similar as well. Both President Clinton and President Obama
justified their use of force to begin the bombing campaign by relying not on congressional
authorization but on authorizations from international organizations--NATO and the U.N. (U.N.
News Center 2011; Wedgwood 1999). Both rejected the applicability of the WPR on the grounds
that the air strikes did not constitute "hostilities" (Damrosch 2000; Obama 2011). Further, the
Presidents can be considered ideologically similar: one President's wife is the Secretary of State
for the other!
But, again, two cases can never be exactly the same and the situations in Kosovo and
Libya had important differences. The international community agreed, with almost
unprecedented speed, about the means and ends in Libya; this was a reflection on Qaddafi's
universally negative reputation. Agreement also came easily in the case of Kosovo, but this was
•
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410
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110
S
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S
53
110
110
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largely for a different reason: because Russia, not yet recovered from the collapse of the Soviet
•
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•
response to genocide whereas the conflict in Libya was not defined as a genocide ,5 although in
•
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•
•
•
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•
411
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
411
4110
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••
Union, was in no position to oppose NATO. Technically, the intervention in Kosovo was in
both cases the intervention was portrayed, accurately to some extent at least, as a response to an
extremely violent attack by an unpopular dictator on a his own civilian population. This allowed
leaders to frame both operations as humanitarian interventions (Garamone 1999; Patrick 2011a).
The domestic differences seem to be more important than the international differences.
Strikingly, both military actions occurred at the same point in the President's term--in March of
the year preceding a presidential election--which is a significant similarity. But President Clinton
was in the final twenty months of his second term in office when he authorized the operations in
Kosovo whereas President Obama was twenty months away from facing reelection when the
campaign in Libya began. The operations in Kosovo only lasted about eleven weeks but were
preceded by extended American involvement in the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, including
air strikes over Bosnia in 1995 and over 20,000 troops deployed to support the Dayton Accords.
The operations in Libya technically lasted seven months, though national attention began to fade
after the debate over the WPR in June, refocusing only in October when Qaddafi was killed.
President Clinton was facing a Republican-controlled Congress, whereas President Obama was
opposed only by the Republican-controlled House. President Clinton's air strikes were
authorized, at the last minute, by the Senate with the passage of S. Con. Res. 21 (1999). By
contrast, Senate resolutions to authorize President Obama's actions never reached the floor.
5 "Genocide" is defined by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Article Two
reads, "In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in
whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such...." By this definition, the conflict in Libya
was perhaps not technically a genocide because Qaddafi was not killing civilians because of their identity as
members of a particular group as such ("Convention").
54
The literature suggests several possible independent variables 6 The electoral connection
operates primarily through public opinion. The electoral connection can also affect Senator
action through the rally effect and based on the proximity of an election. Another independent
variable is the argument that senators may also act based on their personal views of good public
policy. In the literature, these are generally measured by considering ideology and partisanship,
but the natural experiment presented by Kosovo and Libya offers a way to hold the policy
considerations roughly constant. Burgin and Kingdon aimed to synthesize these schools of
thought by adding other mechanisms that can affect Senator action. Kingdon argues that
"constituent intensity," and not just opinion, matters. Burgin argues that, in addition to
constituent intensity, the Senator may not act if she does not sit on a relevant committee, both
because committee membership may reveal something about personal views, and because it
affords access to the decision-making process that a Senator might not otherwise have.
Thus, the levels of each variable at the time of a Senator's action must be coded. To
measure constituent intensity, which Kindgon argues is more important than simple public
opinion, I followed his methodology. He notes, "There is no ready way in which a classification
[of intensity] could easily be accomplished. So as a rough coding, I made a judgment about how
much attention the issue appeared to have received in the press..." (314). This aspect of
Kingdon's approach seems to have two justifications: journalists and editors are likely to report
on matters that they believe their readers will consider important (because they are in the
business of selling newspapers); and, in any event, newspaper reports will bring an issue to
constituents' attention and tend to make it more salient. While Kingdon simply made a
6
A complete chart with all the data can be found in the appendix.
55
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Measuring The Independent Variables
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
"judgment" about how much attention a subject received, I thought it would be less subjective to
count actual mentions of the subject in specific newspapers, and then devise a way to correct for
mentions that were not related to the conflicts ?
Specifically, I decided to approximate constituent intensity by, first, finding the
newspaper with the largest circulation in the Senator's state. After determining that newspaper, I
looked at the number of times that the newspaper mentioned "Libya" during the time in which
the Senator would have to decide how to vote or participate. I searched for mentions of "Libya"
between 1 March 2011 and 30 June 2011. Because some "background noise" also turned up-obituaries of those born in Libya, travel guides, and so on--I made a control variable, counting
the times Libya was mentioned exactly one year prior, from 1 March 2010 to 30 June 2011. The
final count of mentions in the newspaper was the 2010 count subtracted from the 2011 count.
I completed this procedure on Libya and not Kosovo because electronic archives of the
relevant newspapers are not available, or are not accessible, for the period of the Kosovo
intervention. But this is not a significant problem because the variable measured by newspaper
mentions--constituent intensity--is much more likely to play a role in explaining Senators' votes
on Libya. Every Senator in the group (except Cochran) voted on Kosovo; by contrast, a sizable
portion of the group did not vote on Libya. Explaining inaction can be done in part by looking at
constituent intensity, according to the Kingdon thesis, and so these data from the newspapers
were useful in connection with Libya. The final concern was that larger newspapers would have
more room to devote to possibly-less-relevant international issues, while smaller papers would
focus primarily on local issues, so I noted the circulation numbers for each paper. I found that
In some cases, the Libya count seemed especially low and a Senator's committee placement suggested there might
be other, more important issues. In these cases, I guessed at what that other, more important issue might be. In these
cases, I repeated the same procedure but with a different search term. For example, as will be explained later, I
searched "oil spill" in the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
7
56
as a factor influencing the coverage of the conflict in Libya.
I also examined public opinion data on a Senator or a President, using the same date
restrictions when possible. Sometimes it was difficult to find a public opinion poll exactly within
the specified margins. For example, for some senators, I found polling data at the end of 2010
and then again in the summer of 2011. Oftentimes, these numbers were not significantly
different, leading me to conclude that public opinion had not changed in an important way over
that short time span--or, if it had changed, that would have been for a demonstrable reason and
either there would have been a poll done sooner, or there would be some other indication that
such a change had occurred. Further, I mostly used the most popular polling companies--Public
Policy Polling, Talking Points Memo, Gallup, and so on--possibly the same data that Senators
themselves would use when trying to understand their popularity back home. Because, in truth,
their exact popularity matters less than how they perceived their popularity. Therefore even if I
could not find a poll during the exact March-June span, I used the polling data from nearby dates.
Finally, I looked at the committees on which each Senator sits 8 There seem to be two
very relevant committees and two slightly less relevant committees, and all the rest can be
considered irrelevant. The Foreign Relations committee and the Armed Services committee are
clearly the most relevant; the Intelligence committee and the Government Affairs/Homeland
Security committee seem to be slightly less relevant. The reason for these classifications goes
back to Fenno: the Senator's committee assignments reflect both the Senator's influence over a
certain policy domain and, importantly, the Senator's interests. Though the Appropriations
committee, for example, certainly does have a role to play in the conduct of warfare, that is not
Committee information was available on each Senator's website. A more specific explanation of how I found this
data is in the appendix.
8
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circulation does not, in fact, correlate with mentions; newspaper size can therefore be discounted
••
••
•
•
its primary purpose. A Senator who is interested in foreign policy and warfare is unlikely to
•
choose to serve only on committees like Appropriations, Budget, or Finance, even though those
ID
committees are important. She is much more likely to seek an assignment to the Foreign
•
4111
Relations or Armed Services Committees; or, if she has a slightly less direct interest in military
•
•
affairs, on Intelligence or Homeland Security.
ID
•
The last independent variable is the Senator's personal views of good public policy. As
discussed above, the most-similar design allows me to hold policy views constant to a degree. It
•
•
would be difficult to explain a significant change of opinion between the Kosovo and Libya
ID
interventions. Otherwise, policy views might be approximated through committee placement or
•
•
through party affiliation because, as scholars have explained, the parties now tend to represent
ID
the ideological divisions in the chamber and thus perhaps also illustrate the different viewpoints
•
on policy questions. But, in the absence of any indication to the contrary, I assume that policy
•
•
views cannot account for different votes on Kosovo and Libya.
•
•
The Dependent Variable: Senate Actions and Senator Positions
•
The universe of possible actions Senators took on Kosovo and Libya is formally different and so
•
different methods are required to discover each Senator's opinion. For Kosovo, the Senate
•
actually voted on a resolution to grant President Clinton the authorization for air strikes. This
ID
•
ID
•
•
was S. Con. Res. 21 (1999) sponsored by Senator Biden and cosponsored, from the G39, by
Senators Levin, McConnell, and Lieberman. The resolution passed 23 March 1999. The
resolution read, in full:
•
•
•
•
ID
Resolved, by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), That the
President of the United States is authorized to conduct military air operations and
missile strikes in cooperation with our NATO allies against the Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro).
58
•
•
•
The votes by the G39 are recorded in the table below, where votes in favor are indicated by plus
signs, votes against are noted by minus signs, and Cochran, the only member to miss the vote, is
given a zero.
Akaka
Baucus
Bingaman
Boxer
Cochran
Collins
Conrad
Crapo
Durbin
Enzi
+
+
0
+
+
Feinstein
Grassley
Harkin
Hatch
Hutchison
Inhofe
Inouye
Johnson
Kerry
Kohl
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
Kyl
Landrieu
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lugar
McCain
McConnell
Mikulski
Murray
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
Reed
Reid
Roberts
Rockefeller
Schumer
Sessions
Shelby
Snowe
Wyden
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
For the issue of Libya, unlike with Kosovo, there was no resolution that reached the floor
to be voted upon; instead, other steps were necessary to discover each Senator's opinion.
Specifically, I considered four types of actions: sponsoring or cosponsoring a resolution; issuing
a press release; speaking on the floor or entering remarks into the Senate record; and taking a
position in an appearance on a news show or in speaking with a newspaper reporter. There were
six resolutions introduced, or cosponsored, by one of the G39.
• Senator Kerry sponsored S.J.Res. 20, supporting the limited use of U.S. troops in support
of NATO. The resolution was scheduled for a vote but was preempted to focus on the debt
ceiling debate. Of the group of 39, Feinstein, Durbin, Kyl, Levin, Lieberman, and McCain
cosponsored this resolution.
• Senator McCain sponsored S.J.Res 102 which called for a no-fly zone and supported the
Transitional National Council as the rightful government of Libya. Of the G39, Lieberman
cosponsored this resolution.
59
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• Senator McCain also sponsored S.J. Res 194, which expressed the 'sense of the Senate' on
Libya. The resolution supports President Obama's policy on Libya and requests regular
reports by the executive to Congress on military actions. This resolution was cosponsored
by Feinstein, Kerry, Levin, and Lieberman.
• Two senators from the group of 39 cosponsored other resolutions. Senator Hutchison
cosponsored a resolution offered by Senator Ensign that stated that intervention in Libya
was not in the United States' interest and instead called on the Arab League and NATO to
take action. Senators Inhofe and Roberts cosponsored a resolution offered by Senator
Cornyn which asked for details about the operation and requested that President Obama
seek Congressional authorization for the war. Besides these actions, there was no other
action on Libya in the Senate via resolutions.
In coding the other actions--issuing press releases, speaking to hometown newspapers,
appearing on news shows on television, or speaking on the floor of the Senate (or entering
remarks into the Congressional record)--I have essentially followed Burgin's approach: I have
tried to code them by opinion (pro- or anti-administration) and depth of involvement. A zero
meant the Senator was entirely uninvolved. A one was given for Senators who supported the
administration and only issued a press release or made a statement to the news media, because I
considered these actions to reflect the the lowest level of involvement. (A negative one was given
for a press release of comments that opposed the administration). A two was given for Senators
who supported the administration and acted on that by speaking on the floor but who stopped
short of sponsoring a resolution. (A negative two, again, was the same activities but in opposition
to the administration). A three was given for Senators who supported the administration and who
sponsored or cosponsored a resolution. (A negative three was given if the Senator opposed the
60
awarded the point value that corresponded to the most involved activity in which they
participated.
If one action did not reveal the Senator's opinion, I did other things to try to discover her
position. For example, Senator Hutchison cosponsored the Cornyn resolution, which was not
itself strongly anti-administration, but she had spoken out elsewhere against the intervention.
Therefore, it is possible to understand her cosponsorship as an anti-administration action.
My scoring of Senators' responses to the Libya intervention therefore has two facets:
first, considering the direction of the Senator's opinion (for or against the President's decision to
intervene) and, second, considering the level of involvement. This is different from the Kosovo
scoring because Libya, unlike Kosovo, did not present an opportunity for a single floor vote on a
resolution that would decisively reveal the Senator's view.
The Libya scores of the group of 39 are as follows:
Akaka
Baucus
Bingaman
Boxer
Cochran
Collins
Conrad
Crapo
Durbin
Enzi
0
-1
2
2
0
-1
0
-1
2
0
Feinstein
Grassley
Harkin
Hatch
Hutchison
Inhofe
Inouye
Johnson
Kerry
Kohl
3
-2
1
-1
-3
-3
0
0
3
-1
Kyl
Landrieu
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lugar
McCain
McConnell
Mikulski
Murray
3
0
0
3
3
-3
3
-2
0
0
Reed
Reid
Roberts
Rockefeller
Schumer
Sessions
Shelby
Snowe
Wyden
2
2
-1
1
0
-2
0
-1
1
Using this information, each Senator's opinion on both issues can be examined. I can also
identify the cases in which a Senator's view changed, despite the strong similarities between the
two interventions. There are three broad groups of Senators: those who were in favor of both
military interventions, those who opposed both, and those who changed their opinion. In this
third group, there are multiple ways to change opinion. Clearly, those who supported one
61
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
administration through a resolution). Where Senators took more than one action, they were
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intervention and opposed the other changed their position, but so did those who took no action
on one question and took a position on the other. I will first consider those Senators who took
positions on both issues; later, I will turn to those who were uninvolved on one of the issues. The
Senators who took positions can be grouped as follows.9
Group 4:
Group 1:
Group 3:
Group 2:
Constant / In Favor Constant / Opposed Support K, Oppose L Oppose K, Support L
Bingaman
Boxer
Collins
Baucus
Kyl
Durbin
Crapo
Hatch
Kohl
Feinstein
Grassley
Harkin
Hutchison
Lugar
Kerry
McConnell
Inhofe
Levin
Roberts
Snowe
Lieberman
Sessions
McCain
Reed
Reid
Rockefeller
Wyden
Using these data, I will try to answer the research questions by seeing the extent to which the
Senators' behavior can be explained by the independent variables offered by the literature.
C. The Rules of the Game: What Drives Senate Action?
I believe that the behavior of the G39 in response to the military interventions in Kosovo
and Libya support four rules--four hypotheses that the data roughly confirm. Solely for
convenience of expression, I assume, in stating these rules, that the President is a Democrat,
because that was the case for both Kosovo and Libya. Obviously the rules could be restated for a
Republican President, and my claim is that, judging from the evidence I have uncovered, the
rules would still hold.
9
The sources for each Senator's position are available in the bibliography.
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• Rule la: The exception to this rule is when the President is polling poorly in the
Senator's state.
• Rule 2: Republicans will oppose the President.
• Rule 2a: The exception to this rule is when a member's own individual policy
convictions are very strong and supporting the President does not put the member at
risk of a primary challenge.
• Rule 2b: The other possible exception to this rule is when there is a rally effect that
substantially increases the President's popularity.
• Rule 3: Retirement--or the lack of an electoral connection--can, but does not always, allow a
Senator to vote based upon public policy and personal views, rather than constituency or party
concerns.
• Rule 4: Members are more likely to be inactive on any issue when it is of little salience in their
constituency or when another issue is of extraordinary salience to their constituency (such that
the Senators may feel that they cannot be seen to be focusing on any other issue). An apathetic
constituency is not a sufficient condition for inaction, as some members may seize the
opportunity to pursue their own personal policy goals, but members who were inactive were in
an environment in which there were either electoral disincentives to action or simply nonelectoral motivations. (This rule applies to Senators who did not get involved on one of the
issues; I include it here for completeness.)
These rules apply to Senators who changed their positions between the interventions and
those who did not. But once we take advantage of the natural experiment by focusing on the
Senators who held different positions on Kosovo and Libya we can begin to make progress in
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• Rule 1: Democrats will support their President on questions of war.
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identifying the likely determinants of the Senators' behavior. A few Republicans supported the
Kosovo intervention, in some cases strongly, but opposed the Libya military action. Some
Democrats did the same, although their opposition to Libya was mild. The Republican Senators'
policy views seem to have played a role in their willingness to support the President on one
occasion, and it would be a mistake to disregard the influence of a Senator's policy views.
But the examples of Senators who switched their positions primarily vindicate the
electoral connection thesis. Even in the area of foreign policy, from which voters are supposedly
disengaged, Senators are paying close attention to their re-election prospects. But--importantly-the electoral connection thesis must be refined in certain ways in order to explain the Senators'
behavior.
Rule 1: Democrats will support their President.
Rule 1 describes the actions of group one, with the exception of Senator McCain, of
course, who is a Republican. Rule 1 is broadly consistent with the Electoral Connection thesis.
All the Senators in group one represent a state that President Clinton won in 199610. All the
Democrats represent a state that President Obama won in 2008. These Senators might have
thought that opposing the President would hurt their electoral prospects. Related, Senators might
believe that their re-election chances are linked to the public's perception of how effective the
President is; if that is so, then members of the President's party will have an electoral incentive to
support him, just as members of the other party will have an incentive to oppose him. Also, a
Senator who deviates from her party's position risks losing support from within her own party,
which might be fatal to her electoral prospects. Approving of the intervention in Kosovo and the
10
All Electoral College data is from RealClearPolitics. Maps can be found in the appendix.
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Senators.
But the Electoral Connection is not the only possible explanation. Perhaps partisanship
itself is the explanation--perhaps these Democrats supported Clinton and Obama simply because
the Presidents were Democrats. Related, these Democrats may have wanted to maintain or
enhance their position internally in the Congressional party. Or, because party affiliation, today,
tends to correspond to ideological or policy views, these Democrats may share the President's
views about intervention. Notably, each of these senators, except Harkin, sits on a committee
with jurisdiction over questions of war and national security. Not only did this give them a
chance to be involved on the issue because of the committee placement, it may indicate that each
considers foreign affairs and national security an issue of personal interest and therefore
something on which the Senator has strong views.
Senators Harkin and, of course, McCain present somewhat more complicated issues. I
will return to them in a moment.
Rule la: Democrats are more likely to oppose the President when he is polling poorly in
their states. The Senators who changed their views enable us to sort through these hypotheses.
In the case of the Democrats--and, as I will argue in connection with Rule 2a and 2b, the
Republicans, too--these cases tend to support the electoral connection thesis.
Kosovo: Senator Bingaman was the only Senator whose actions fit within Rule l a on the
issue of Kosovo, but Bingaman's situation is most like that of Senator Kyl, and so both will be
explained later as part of Rule 3.
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intervention in Libya therefore seem, other things equal, to make good electoral sense for these
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Libya: Rule la describes the actions of Senators Kohl and Baucus, the Democrats in
Group Two. Kohl's action on Libya is, at first glance, puzzling. Clinton and Obama won
Wisconsin in 1996 and 2008 respectively. Kohl does not sit on any relevant committee,
indicating that military intervention in Libya is not an issue in which he has a lot of personal
interest. In any event, he voted for the intervention in Kosovo, so it is hard to argue that his antiLibya position was the result of personal policy convictions. And, in fact, the press release he
issued in response to the President's speech on Libya was bland and vague; it was very carefully
worded and only very slightly in opposition to the President (Kohl 2011).
Wiconsinites explain Kohl's actions. Though President Obama won the state by a
fourteen-point margin, his popularity had deteriorated by 2011. A poll released in July 2011
indicated that only 50% approved of Obama's job performance, and 64% of respondents reported
being dissatisfied with the way things were going in the U.S. at the time. Nine in 10
Wisconsinites said the U.S. was in bad times economically. Sixty-nine percent reported that they
disapproved of the way Congress was handling its job, and 59% said they thought it was more
important for the federal government to focus its attention on creating jobs and reducing
unemployment (Kniss 2011). With numbers like this, Kohl's actions on Libya--a very mild
distancing of himself from the President--become easier to understand.
One complication is that Kohl is not, in fact, running for reelection; he has announced his
retirement (Cillizza 2011b). The timing is important, though: Kohl did not announce his
retirement until two months after he took a position on Libya (Cillizza 2011b). Thus, as best as
we can know, his position-taking was still done with reelection in mind. Otherwise, Kohl's
apparent responsiveness to the views of his constituents may reflect not concerns about reelection but simply his belief that he should not do something of which his constituents would
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extended to his decision about Libya).
Rule la also explains the actions of Senator Baucus, which again seem consistent with
the electoral connection thesis. President Clinton did not carry Montana in 1996, so at first
Senator Baucus's support for the Kosovo intervention might seem inconsistent with that thesis.
But when Baucus voted in 1999 to support the intervention in Kosovo, nearly 72% of Montana
Democrats approved of President Clinton's job performance, as did a plurality of independents
(MSU Billings Poll 1999). The situation had changed drastically by 2011. The Affordable Care
Act had made both Baucus and President Obama unpopular in Montana: President Obama has
only a 40% approval rating in Montana and Baucus only a 38% rating. Obama did, however,
have the support of over 87% of Montana Democrats (Johnson 2011).
Baucus's response to this situation was like Kohl's. In fact, Baucus managed to be even
more mild in his criticism. He issued a statement saying: "I have deep concerns about the clarity
of the mission in Libya, and I continue to oppose U.S. involvement in this war" (Schontzler
2011). But at the same time (in a different story on the same day in the same newspaper) Baucus
said the President had the constitutional authority to intervene, although he added: "I think the
president should have been consulting with Congress more than he has. I'm concerned there's
been insufficient consultation." And he said he was concerned about a lack of an exit strategy
(Volz 2011). Especially in light of Baucus's lack of a committee assignment related to foreign
affairs--which is to say, his presumed lack of specialized knowledge or intense interest in the
Kosovo and Libya issues--his actions seem best explained by the electoral connection thesis. He
supported a Democratic President who was very popular in his state; he opposed an unpopular
Democratic President. But his opposition was mild, perhaps because he was aware that President
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disapprove (coupled with an assumption that the constituents' lukewarm views of Obama
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Obama remained very popular among Montana Democrats, and Senator Baucus did not want to
alienate his party or risk a primary challenge.
Rule 2: Republicans will oppose the President.
Rule 2 describes the actions of the Senators in Group 2, all of them Republicans who
voted against both interventions. As with the Democrats of Group One, these Republicans might
be motivated by partisanship--which might in turn be explained by ideology or electoral
prospects--by personal policy convictions that correlate with party, or by an electoral interest in
opposing the President. Only three of these Republicans sit on relevant committees, suggesting
that they are not primarily interested in foreign policy issues. Two of the Senators in Group 2 do
present somewhat interesting issues. Grassley is from a state that both Clinton and Obama
carried, and he voted differently from Harkin, his fellow Iowan, on both Kosovo and Libya--facts
that might seem to undermine the electoral connection. And Collins is a notable contrast with
Snowe; Snowe voted for intervention in Kosovo but against in Libya. As I will argue below,
however, the electoral connection thesis can account for these cases.
The Republicans in Group Three--who changed their views--again provide a way to test
the various theories. Clearly, their personal policy view does not explain their votes: Kosovo and
Libya were substantively similar enough that it would be hard to argue that these Senators
simply felt differently about the interventions. But Nincic's argument about electoral cycles--a
refinement of the Electoral Connection thesis--seems to explain the actions of three of the Group
Three Republicans. Of the four Republicans in Group Three, Hatch, Lugar, and Snowe were up
for election in 2000 (immediately after Kosovo) and are up for reelection in 2012.
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case, would have faced11) a primary opponent challenging them as being not conservative
enough (Lobianco 2012). Support for President Obama's policies, in any form, might have
damaged their chances in the primary. The Mayhewian course of action in this situation is to
oppose the intervention in Libya despite prior support for Kosovo. It is hard to resist the
conclusion that these Senators voted entirely on their electoral prospects and not on personal
policy convictions.
There is only one more Senator who fits Rule 2: McConnell. McConnell not only
supported the military action in Kosovo; he cosponsored the resolution in support of President
Clinton's action! So it is difficult to believe that McConnell opposed the Libya intervention on
policy grounds. In fact, before Obama announced his intention to implement a no-fly zone over
Libya, McConnell was calling for a no-fly zone (Berger 2011). But once the intervention in
Libya began, McConnell began to criticize the President (Kasperowicz 2011). McConnell, unlike
the other three Republicans in this group, was not facing a primary challenge. What caused the
dramatic change in McConnell's behavior between 1999 and 2011?
Partisanship seems to be the explanation. One crucial aspect of McConnell's position did
change between 1999 and 2011: in 2011, unlike 1999, he was the leader of his party in the
Senate. McConnell's own statements confirm that partisanship was central to his decision: he
admitted that, if a Republican were in the White House, the position of Senate Republicans
would be different. McConnell said: "I think some of these views were probably held by some of
11 Snowe
announced in February 2012 that she would not be seeking reelection. However, the relevant actions on
Libya occurred before this announcement so it is a fair assumption that she was acting to maximize her chances of
reelection when she took a position on Libya. The reasons she gave for retiring--among them that the Senate had
moved so drastically to the right--line up with her policy flip between Kosovo and Libya. It is possible that, as a
matter of policy, she would have preferred to vote for Libya but felt she could not. In any event, it is fair to consider
her 2011 actions as actions taken to maximize the chances for reelection.
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In 2012, however--unlike in 2000--each of these Republicans is facing (or, in Snowe's
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my members--even in the previous administration--but party loyalty tended to kind of mute
them" (Raju 2012).
Of course, "partisanship" itself is not a complete explanation. McConnell may have been
concerned about his own power within the party; it would undermine his position in the party to
support a Democratic President when most of his Republican colleagues were opposed. Or he
may again have been concerned about electoral prospects; a Republican endorsement of
President Obama's policies, especially from the party leader, could only enhance Obama's reelection chances. So while the electoral connection thesis seems to be the only plausible
explanation of the other Republicans in Group Three, that thesis is consistent with (although not
the only explanation of) McConnell's actions as well.
Rule 2a: The exception to Rule 2 is when a member's own individual policy convictions are
very strong and supporting the President does not put the member at risk of a primary
challenge.
Senator McCain, who supported military action in both cases, is the obvious example of
Rule 2a. A veteran of the Vietnam War, McCain sits on the Intelligence, Armed Services and
Homeland Security/Governmental Affairs committees. He has made a reputation in the Senate
for having an especially strong interest in foreign affairs. Before the Biden resolution on Kosovo
was passed, McCain introduced a resolution authorizing Clinton to use "all necessary force" in
the former Yugoslavia--that is, McCain proposed a resolution that supported Clinton to a greater
degree than did Biden (CNN Politics 1999). McCain is not a simple "position taker" on these
issues. In addition to his work on Kosovo, he sponsored two resolutions on Libya and
cosponsored a third with Senator Kerry. McCain has the distinction of being the only Republican
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positions really are a matter of personal policy convictions. McCain has even spoken about how
his biography as a prisoner of war in Vietnam has informed his policy positions and his support
for Presidential use of force (Jackson 2008).
Senators Hatch, Lugar, and Snowe may also fit into this category. There is good reason to
believe that their votes in favor of the Kosovo intervention reflected their policy views. They
each had been re-elected previously by a comfortable margin. They were voting against party
orthodoxy and, therefore, their votes could not have been calculated to enhance their power in
the Senate. Lugar sits on the Foreign Relations Committee and has a long history of being
involved in foreign policy questions (Langhorne 2012). Moreover, as I explained, for each of
these Senators, their contrary actions in connection with Libya can be explained by the prospect
of a primary challenge. A likely explanation, therefore, is that they voted for intervention in
Kosovo because that vote reflected their policy views and did not undermine their chances of reelection. Once a threat to their re-election arose, their positions changed. This again suggests that
the electoral connection is an important determinant of Senators' behavior--although not the only
determining factor, because policy views are sometimes decisive.
Rule 2b: The other exception to Rule Two is when, because of the rally effect, Senators can
explain their vote as a vote for national security rather than a vote for the President.
The rally effect is another possible explanation for the Group Three Republicans' votes
in 2000. President Clinton was able to create a little bit of a rally effect through his support for
the Kosovo intervention (Samples 2011, 10). This may also have made it possible for the Group
Three Republicans to vote for that intervention without damaging their re-election chances.
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to support the interventions in both Kosovo and in Libya, further indicating that, for him, these
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There was very little to no rally effect for President Obama on Libya, by contrast (Mak 2011). To
the extent the rally effect played a role, it confirms the electoral connection thesis. But in view of
how safe these Senators' seats were in 2000, and of their (Lugar's in particular) long-standing
interest in foreign affairs, the rally effect seems like a much less important explanation than the
Senators' ability to advance their policy views without facing an intra-party challenge.
Rule 3: Retirement allows Senators to vote their policy views.
Senators Bingaman and Kyl present a particularly interesting case. They were the only
two Senators to oppose the intervention in Kosovo while supporting the intervention in Libya.
The only apparent explanation for their change in position is that both will retire after their
current term, as they announced in 2011 (Catanese 2011; Trygstad 2011). This explanation may
work for Kyl. It suggests that he joined his Republican colleagues in opposing the Kosovo
intervention out of partisan or electoral concerns even though he would have been comfortable
with the intervention on policy grounds. Then, when he knew he was leaving the Senate, he felt
free to vote his pro-intervention policy views on Libya. But since several other Republicans
supported the Kosovo action--recall that McConnell co-sponsored a resolution in support, and
McCain, Kyl's fellow Arizonan, was enthusiastically in support--this explanation for Kyl's
Kosovo vote is not entirely convincing. Kyl's Senate seat was secure; he won in 2000 with 79%
of the vote, and President Bush carried Arizona fairly easily (Trandahl 2001). As for the Libya
vote, Kyl's hometown newspaper mentioned the Libya conflict 55 times, which is below average,
so constituent opinion seems not to have been a factor. Kyl does not serve on a relevant
committee, so he may not have well-developed views on the issue; perhaps he voted as he did so
that McCain, his colleague, would not be the only Republican supporting the intervention in
Libya, and the vote was costless for Kyl because of his imminent retirement.
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of the vote in 2000 (Trandahl 2011). He was a Democrat who opposed a Democratic President.
Gore barely carried New Mexico in the Presidential election, winning by a fraction of a percent
(Trandahl 2011), but since Gore did win the state, and Bingaman himself was very popular, it is
unlikely that Bingaman opposed the Kosovo intervention because of Clinton's unpopularity in
New Mexico. His vote on Libya suggests that his policy views, unless they changed for some
reason, would have supported intervention in Kosovo. Like Kyl, he was not a member of a
relevant committee, so it is unlikely that he had well worked-out views. His hometown
newspaper mentioned the conflict in Libya only 30 times, well below average, so a desire to
represent his constituents was also unlikely to have been a factor. Lacking any other explanation,
Bingaman and Kyl may perhaps be taken to support Nincic's argument about election cycles-when faced with an imminent election, both opposed the intervention; with only retirement
looming, both supported Obama on Libya--but the argument is not strong.
Rule 4: Members are more likely to be inactive on any issue when it is of sufficiently
reduced salience in their constituency.
"Reduced salience" can come from a number of factors. The constituency simply may be
unaware of the issue. This can have one of two effects on a Senator. First, believing her
constituency to be uninformed and apathetic, she may seize the opportunity for increased
discretion and act according to her own policy preferences. Or, second, she may be more in the
mold that Burgin describes and have many important demands on her time. In this case, she may
view an uninformed constituency as one that permits her to remain inactive on the issue and
focus on other subjects.
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Bingaman is an even more curious case. Like Kyl, he had a safe seat; he won nearly 62%
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Related to this situation is the constituency that considers a separate issue to have
significant salience. In this situation, regardless of personal policy convictions, the Senator may
sense a disincentive toward action on the foreign policy issue; she will not want to be accused of
ignoring the issues that matter most to her constituency and instead focusing on esoteric matters
that the constituency does not care about. So she will remain inactive on the foreign policy
question, preferring to act on the issues of great salience to her constituency. Each of these
scenarios will be explored in greater detail below, but before discussing members who were
inactive on either the issue of Libya or Kosovo, one more chart is necessary to illustrate the
positions of these Senators.
Group Five:
Support K, Inactive on L
Akaka
.Conrad
Inouye
Leahy
Mikulski
Murray
Shelby
Landrieu
Johnson
Schumer
Group Six:
Oppose K, Inactive on L
Enzi
Group Seven:
Inactive on Both
Cochran
Inactive on both interventions, Cochran has effectively removed himself from the sample;
because of this inactivity, it is hard to draw many conclusions. It may be that he simply does not
care about foreign affairs. It may be that he missed the vote on Kosovo for a fluke reason (illness,
for example) and did not care to get involved on Libya for the same reasons as any other
member. But with no background information, we cannot speculate.
First, consider Group Five. These are the Democrats (plus one Republican, Shelby) who
supported Clinton on Kosovo but who did not take a position on Libya. There are two actions to
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On this vote, these Democrats fall under Rule 1: all except Conrad and Johnson represent states
that President Clinton won in 1996 and, through some combination of personal policy
preferences, electoral rewards, party loyalty, and the other possible explanations I canvassed
above, these Senators voted to support their President. Their inactivity on Libya then must be
explained. There are a variety of different factors; sometimes, compelling explanations exist, but
sometimes this is not the case. These Senators will each be considered in turn.
First consider Senators who remained inactive on Libya because other issues were more
salient to their constituencies. Senator Schumer is one of these Senators. Polls found that, during
the conflict in Libya, between 55 and 64% of New York voters approved of Schumer. The same
polls found that President Obama had an approval rating between 53 and 60% during the conflict
(Quinnipiac University Polling Institute 2011). Large majorities also said that, if the election
were held on the day of the poll, that they would vote for Obama's reelection and that he
"deserved" another term. Numbers like this should have placed Senator Schumer in Group One,
like other Democrats. But Schumer remained inactive, likely because other issues were more
salient for his constituency. During the relevant period, the New York Daily News12 mentioned
Libya 73 times--just about average. A clue for more salient issues can be found by looking at
Senator Schumer's committee placements, which have a heavy emphasis on financial and
business issues. This makes sense for the Senator from New York who, after all, does count the
members of Wall Street among his constituents. Indeed, during the time when "Libya" appeared
in the Daily News only 73 times, "Wall Street" was mentioned 550 times. This supports the
12 The newspapers with the highest circulation in New York are the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, but
because of their national orientation, I did not examine them for evidence about the salience of issues to local voters.
The Daily News is the third-largest newspaper.
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explain: their vote for Kosovo, and their lack of action on Libya. First, consider the Kosovo vote.
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literature's argument that domestic--and particularly, financial--concerns tend to trump foreign
affairs. Furthermore, Schumer's inactivity seems to follow Burgin's argument: without a push
from constituents and without personal interest, Senators will decline to be involved. All of these
descriptions fit this situation. Senator Schumer seems to have calculated that, despite high
approval ratings, he needed to remain inactive on Libya and focus his attention on economic
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issues because these topics were of such great salience to his constituency.
Senator Landrieu is in a similar position though with less support at home. A December
2010 Public Policy Polling (PPP) survey found that she her disapproval rating was twelve points
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higher than her approval rating (Jensen 2010b). Further, after the 2010 midterms, she was left as
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the only state-wide official elected from Democratic Party (Alpert 2011). A RealClearPolitics
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Obama had only a 37 percent approval rating (Deslatte 2011). These factors would have made it
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committees that are not entirely relevant to foreign policy (Government Affairs) only seems to
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poll in 2011 found that, while Senator Landrieu had an approval rating of 50 percent, President
difficult for Senator Landrieu to support President Obama on Libya--the fact that she sits on
support this argument. Interestingly, her hometown newspaper, the Times-Picayune, mentioned
Libya 251 times in the time period measured--one of the highest counts for any Senator. But, like
Schumer, Senator Landrieu was busy working on issues of even greater salience for her
constituency: the phrase "oil spill" was mentioned 2,930 times during the period that Libya was
mentioned 251 times. Thus between lukewarm support at home, only marginally-relevant
committees, and an issue of comparatively low salience, Senator Landrieu seems to have
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calculated that she could remain inactive on Libya.
For other Senators, the explanation seems to lie less in their preoccupation with other
issues and more with their personal apathy. Consider Senator Leahy. His hometown newspaper
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mentioned Libya only seven times--one of the fewest totals of any senator in the pool. While
Leahy's committee assignments sometimes have an international focus (for example, he sits on
the Appropriations subcommittees that fund the Departments of Defense, State, and Homeland
Security), he does not sit on a committee that has jurisdiction over warfare or the armed services.
Given that the Libya debate was suspended to deal with the debt crisis--a topic over which
Leahy's committees might have jurisdiction--it is possible his attention was elsewhere. But it is
equally likely that, without a proven interest in the topic and without constituent interest spurring
him forward, Senator Leahy decided against taking a position on Libya.
Senator Johnson (of South Dakota) is an even more extreme case than Senator Leahy.
Because while Senator Leahy represents a state that can consistently be considered a Democratic
state, Senator Johnson does not have the same electoral security. A February 2011 poll found that
47% of South Dakotans approved of his work, with 41% disapproving. He received broad
support from Democrats and Independents and even polls ahead of most Senators with cross-
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party support (i.e. with Republicans) (Jensen 2011c). However, a 2011 poll found President
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Obama to have only a 41% approval rating in South Dakota (Jones 2011b), and Johnson's
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hometown newspaper only mentioned the conflict in Libya twice. Senator Johnson does not sit
on any committees that have jurisdiction over foreign relations. Part Rule 1 a, part Rule 4, all the
numbers point to Senator Johnson's remaining inactive on the issue of Libya.
Of the G39, Senator Conrad seems most similar to Senator Johnson, and neither was
active on the issue of Libya, but their backgrounds are different enough that it is less clear what
motivated Conrad's lack of involvement. North Dakota was rated the 17th most conservative state
and Conrad's seat was always considered a target for Republican capture in 2012, even before
Conrad announced his retirement (Elliott 2011). However, Senator Conrad's hometown
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newspaper mentioned the conflict in Libya 73 times, a tally that is nearly exactly average.
Further, Conrad sits on the Intelligence Committee, so he may have at least some personal
interest in foreign affairs. While these characteristics--retirement, personal interest, moderate
constituency interest--predict Conrad to be involved, or at least to have the freedom to vote his
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conscience, he remained inactive. One possible explanation is that his appointment to the
ID
Intelligence Committee may have come because of the quotas that committee has for
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membership. The Intelligence Committee is technically the "Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence" because members must be placed on the committee by a certain mechanism; it does
not seat members in the same way as the other committees. The committee's website explains:
"By resolution, the 15 SSCI members include two members (one per side) from the
Appropriations, Armed Services, Foreign Relations, and Judiciary Committees in order to ensure
appropriate coordination with those Committees" ("About the Committee"). So it is possible
Conrad's seat on the Intelligence committee is not entirely due to personal interest in the topic.
Another possible explanation is that, after announcing his retirement, the Senator no longer had
any desire to take part in divisive issues.
Senators Akaka and Inouye, both of Hawaii, follow the same logic, though in less
extreme form. In a 2011 poll, PPP found Akaka to have an approval rating of 48% and a
disapproval rating of 38% (Jensen 2011a). He sits on a committee that deals with homeland
security issues and represents a state that Obama won in 2008. But his hometown paper
•
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mentioned the Libya conflict only 53 times, which is below average. Further, Senator Akaka
•
about the intervention in Libya. These last two factors likely combine to explain Akaka's silence:
•
between a comparatively apathetic constituency and the lack of any electoral pressure, he simply
announced his retirement just twenty-four days before President Obama's public announcement
Senators--a 2011 PPP survey found Senator Inouye's approval/disapproval numbers at 62/23
with strong support among independents and even Republicans (Jensen 2011a). Inouye does not
sit on a relevant committee, however, and this apparent lack of personal interest along with
lukewarm constituency intensity seem to have combined to keep Inouye from taking a position.
Senator Murray of Washington faces many of the same circumstances as the senators
from Hawaii. Her hometown newspaper mentioned the Libya conflict 96 times, which is just
above average. A May 2011 poll found her approval rating to be 50%, with 42% disapproving
(Jensen 2011d). A poll done a little while later found President Obama's approval rating to be
50% in Washington (Jones 2011b). While Murray sits on the Veterans' Affairs committee, she
does not show a great deal of personal interest in foreign affairs. Again, lukewarm constituency
interest, borderline polling numbers, and lack of personal interest combined to keep Senator
Murray on the sidelines.
Senators Mikulski and Shelby are the only two Senators left to explain from Group Five,
and both are curious cases but for different reasons. Consider Senator Shelby. His hometown
newspaper mentioned the conflict in Libya only seventeen times--one of the fewest of all the
newspapers measured. He does not sit on a relevant committee. Except for Senator McCain, he
was the only Republican who voted for Kosovo who did not then vote against Libya. President
Obama is, not surprisingly, very unpopular in Alabama (Jones 2011b), and opposing the
intervention in Libya would likely not have cost Shelby anything. Why not simply take a
position? The answer is not clear. PPP numbers indicate that, on approval ratings, Shelby and his
fellow Senator from Alabama are nearly identical: Shelby has a 44/34 spread and Sessions is at
41/34 (Jensen 2010a). Except Sessions is in Group Two: he opposed both interventions. Perhaps
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did not see any motivation to be involved. His colleague from Hawaii is one of the most popular
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the explanation is that Sessions sits on a relevant committee. Given their nearly identical
numbers, lack of constituency interest at home, and an essentially free vote, it remains unclear
why Shelby did not take a position on Libya.
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It is possible that Senator Shelby belongs in Group Two with Senator McCain. He may
support the intervention as a policy out of some personal conviction. This explains the Kosovo
vote. But he may have believed his constituency too rabidly anti-Obama to be able to vote for the
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President's policy. Rather than vote against the policy (because he actually supported the
intervention), he remained inactive rather than potentially face the fury of his constituents. But
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this is just speculation. In any event, given President Obama's unpopularity in Alabama, Senator
5
Shelby's actions (or lack thereof) is at least consistent with the electoral connection thesis.
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Senator Mikulski is perhaps the most curious case of all. Her hometown newspaper
mentioned the conflict in Libya 206 times, one of the most of all the papers sampled. And the
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newspaper was clearly paying attention: when she failed to take a position on Libya, a scathing
editorial, entitled "Mikulski's disappointing silence on Libya" was published, accusing her of
"dodging the issue." The editorial notes that she has a consistently Democratic voting record and
voted against the war in Iraq in 2002. She sits on the intelligence committee (though, again, as
with Conrad, this could be less out of personal interest and instead due to quotas). She represents
a solidly Democratic state and, indeed, is considered to have one of the safest seats in the entire
Senate. A PPP survey described her situation as "unlikely to change" and said that she faced "no
serious contenders" (Jensen 2010c). Indeed, the survey found that she had greater Republican
•
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support than the Republican candidate (Jensen 2010c). As with Shelby, it would seem that
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Mikulski faced no cost for taking a position on Libya aligned with her party's. And, as with
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Shelby, the standard analysis of the numbers is not illuminating.
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80
The last group to explain, Group Six, contains only Enzi of Wyoming His is not a very
interesting case. Like Shelby, he declined to vote on the question of Libya; unlike Shelby, this is
not likely because of his personal policy preferences because he voted against the intervention in
Kosovo. Thus his Kosovo vote is a simple example of Rule 2. Enzi may have been inactive on
Libya for any number of reasons. He does not sit on a relevant committee and his hometown
newspaper only mentioned the conflict four times. This count was the fourth-lowest of any
newspaper counted; the other three members of this low end were also inactive on Libya. Thus,
the lack of a constituent-based incentive to participate likely explains Enzi's inactivity.
The final question, so far as the electoral connection thesis is concerned, involves the
Senators from Iowa: Senators Harkin and Grassley. Harkin voted for both interventions and
Grassley voted against both. They may, of course, just have different policy views. But since
they represent the same state, their differences might seem to undermine the electoral connection
thesis. It is difficult to argue that they were both responding to public opinion in the constituency
or to constituency intensity because they seem to serve the same constituency.
In fact, it may be the case that they serve different constituencies in crucial but subtle
ways. A 2011 poll found Harkin to have an approval/disapproval split of 47/38, while Grassley
has a 57/30 split--he was found to be the most popular elected official in the entire state (Jensen
2011b). There is not much cross-party appeal for either Senator. Seventy-five percent of
Democrats approve of Harkin, as compared to 17% of Republicans and 43% of Independents.
Grassley does slightly better, with 80% approval from Republicans, 38% from Democrats, and
55% from Independents. Of those who voted for Obama in 2008,73% approve of Harkin; of
those who voted for McCain, 74% approve of Grassley (Jensen 2011b). There is also no clear
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dominant party in the state. The Secretary of State reported 695,125 registered Democrats and
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646,397 Republicans in March 2011 (Iowa Secretary of State 2011).
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Harkin and Grassley may, then, be appealing to different constituencies within the state.
Each is concerned to maintain the loyalty of his followers while, presumably, appealing to
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potential swing voters on other issues. This contrast of Harkin and Grassley suggests what
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several other examples also suggest: that the electoral connection thesis is central to
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explanation and that it must be refined in certain ways--for example, to allow for the possibility
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of a Senator's appealing not to his entire state-wide constituency but to a group within the state.
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understanding Senators' votes, even on Kosovo and Libya, but that the thesis is not the sole
This is a return to Fenno's theory about the concentric constituencies: while Harkin and Grassley
have the same.geographic constituency, they have different reelection and primary
constituencies. Thus they can both be appealing to their constituencies even when they vote
differently.
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What affects Congressional responses to Presidential war action? The literature on
congressional decision making suggests a number of independent variables that explain MC
action. Mayhew's seminal work on "the electoral connection" argued that, first and foremost,
MCs care about reelection and act in a way that maximizes their chances of being reelected. The
rally-`round-the-flag effect can be seen as an application of Mayhew: as the public rallies to the
side of the President in times of national crisis, Congress tends to support the President because
MCs are sensitive to changes in public opinion. Fenno offered an alternative to Mayhew, arguing
that although MCs care about public opinion, they may have other goals too, including the desire
to produce good public policy. Fenno found that MCs who sit on particular committees have
different outlooks and views on the purpose of being a legislator. The ideology and partisanship
literature is an application of Fenno's argument. As the parties have become more homogeneous
ideologically, party membership has become a better proxy for policy views than ever before,
and partisanship, including party line votes, is more common. Understanding this dynamic in
Congress illuminates the challenge the President faces when he looks to build a coalition in
support of his decisions.
Two authors aimed to synthesize these two broad schools of thought. Kingdon argued
that the constituency was a key factor in MC decision-making, but he asserted that the
constituency must feel particularly strongly about a given issue for the MC to feel pressure to
follow public opinion. For Kingdon, the salience of the issue and the intensity of constituency
opinion were highly explanatory. Burgin argued about what she characterized as foreign policy
issues, saying that the issues must be salient to the constituency before a MC will become
involved in the issue at all. But, she suggests that MCs may consult their own views of good
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V. Conclusion
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public policy, and will be influenced by their committee placements, when deciding the nature
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and extent of their involvement.
The cases of Kosovo and Libya offer a natural experiment in which to test these
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hypotheses about MC decision-making. In both cases, the United States intervened in a conflict
410
within a nation that was not an international or regional power. In both cases, international
•
attention was focused on the actions of a dictator engaged in a military assault on his own
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people, and the U.S. intervened to stop the dictator. In both instances, the President initially
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an international body--NATO, the United Nations, or both--rather than specific congressional
411
authorization. Both U.S. interventions proceeded by using a combination of targeted air strikes
•
41/
justified his decision to intervene, at the outset of U.S. military action, by invoking the actions of
and the maintenance of a no-fly zone. No U.S. ground troops were involved in either operation.
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No U.S. soldiers were killed in combat in either operation, and the combat portion of both
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operations was over within months.
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4110
I developed a series of rules to describe Senators' actions on the interventions in Kosovo
and Libya. There were two types of Senators: those who switched their positions between
Kosovo and Libya and voted differently, and those who did not switch. Kosovo and Libya
constitute a natural experiment because they present such similar policy issues. The natural
experiment allows me to identify with more specificity the variables that influenced those
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Senators who switched their votes. With respect to the Senators who did not switch their votes,
my analysis leaves open a greater number of possible explanations.
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The votes of those who did not switch their position can be explained by a combination
of the electoral connection, policy preferences, and partisanship schools of thought. Votes
correlated strongly, although not entirely, with partisan affiliation. The Senators who voted along
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party lines may have done so because they thought it would maximize their reelection chances.
Or they may have been concerned with maintaining or enhancing their position within the party
caucus in the Senate. But, given the homogeneity of the parties with respect to policy orientation,
it is also possible that these Senators' votes reflected their personal policy views. Only one
Senator, Senator McCain, crossed party lines on both votes, and his behavior seems to reflect
well-known policy views. The experiment does not test in a way that allows us to separate these
variables in this case; but I can say that, in general, the behavior of these MCs is not inconsistent
with the electoral connection thesis.
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The second group of Senators is those who switched their votes between Kosovo and
Libya. It is unlikely that these Senators changed their policy views between the two votes. I was
able to explain their changed votes by using a version of the electoral connection thesis. At the
time of the second vote, on Libya, these Senators had to appeal to a constituency that was much
less important when they cast their first vote. Specifically, at the time of the Libya vote, these
Senators were facing an intra-party primary challenge; they therefore had to appeal to a more
highly partisan constituency, not just to their state-wide constituency. So their behavior confirms
the electoral connection thesis, although that thesis must be refined to allow for the possibility
that different constituencies will become relevant at different times.
It has sometimes been said--perhaps just as an aspiration--that American politics "stops at
the water's edge." Consistent with that maxim, the electoral connection thesis has been
developed, in the literature, to explain votes on domestic issues. Surveys show that foreign
policy issues are consistently less relevant to members of the public; thus it seems possible that
politics could stop at the water's edge. But in this thesis, I have found that, at least in a certain
subset of foreign policy votes, the electoral connection still seems to hold. I have, I believe,
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plausibly extended the electoral connection to an area of politics to which it was not previously
established that the connection should extend.
And this is not just any subset of foreign policy votes. As I outlined in the introduction,
the interventions in Kosovo and Libya offer a model of the war of the future: a war of choice
waged in a land that is, otherwise, unimportant to United States grand strategy, and waged by
means of air strikes that minimize the risk of U.S. casualties. For reasons I explained, future
American military interventions abroad are likely to take this form, as opposed to ground
operations that involve the risk of numerous U.S. casualties. Ground operations of that kind are
likely to be much more salient to voters. But I have found that the electoral connection holds
even for relatively low-visibility military interventions like those in Kosovo and Libya.
Future research can test these claims in more specific ways. Despite all the similarities
between the Kosovo and Libya interventions, there were some elements that I could not control
for. Clinton was in his second term while Obama is in his first and will stand for re-election.
There is the issue of sequence: Libya was the first war that President Obama initiated whereas
Kosovo was not President Clinton's first war action. But, on the other hand, even while
intervening in Libya, President Obama was dealing with ongoing ground wars (not initiated by
him) in Iraq and Afghanistan; President Clinton was not facing a comparable situation. The
Libya intervention had to compete for news coverage and voter attention with a very high profile
domestic issue--the aftermath of the financial crisis and the economic recession--in a way that
was not true for the Kosovo intervention.
Future research could look to untangle the motivations of the party-line voters
(Democrats in Group One and Republicans in Group Two) to try to understand whether these
votes were primarily motivated by policy or electoral concerns. And while I uncovered no reason
86
the same rules would apply to a Republican President and Democratic members of Congress--a
study might be conducted to try to test that assumption.
These findings allow us to speculate about what may happen if President Obama decides
to intervene in the conflict in Syria, ongoing for the last year. This decision could introduce a
different set of variables from the intervention in Libya. Obama may be in his second term by the
time he decides to intervene. The war in Iraq is over and Obama may no longer be dealing with
the Afghanistan war in a significant way. A different set of Senators would be facing imminent
reelection, which, according to my findings, could affect their votes. For example, Hatch and
Lugar might return to their previously-held policy positions and vote for the intervention in the
absence of a primary challenge. But Landrieu and Johnson, for example, would be facing
reelection instead; rather than remain inactive, as they did on Libya, my findings would predict
that these two Senators--following Rule la, like the Democrats in Group Three--would vote
against President Obama on Syria to maximize their chances for reelection. Moreover, while I
have studied only the Senatorial response to Presidential decisions--not the President's decision
itself--there are feedback effects; the likelihood of opposition in the Senate might influence the
President's decision about Syria.
What lessons have we learned? At the most general level, it seems likely that, with the
war of the future, politics will extend beyond the water's edge as MCs' desire to be re-elected
overcomes their policy views on these crucial Presidential decisions. I am not sure that this is,
normatively, a good situation. Questions about military intervention require specialized
knowledge and careful judgment; the stakes are high, the calculations are difficult, and it is not
obvious that close attention to voters' immediate responses will lead to good decisions. Edmund
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to believe that the rules were asymmetrical between the parties--that is, as far as my findings go,
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Burke's famous formulation of the duties of a representative may be especially appropriate for
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his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion" (Burke
411
foreign policy decisions of this kind: "Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but
1774). It remains an open question whether politics might again play less of a role beyond the
water's edge as representatives recognize an obligation to develop and use their best judgment.
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88
Appendix A: Senators, Positions, Involvement
The charts below contain the following variables: Senator, party, retirement in 2012, vote
on Kosovo, vote on Libya, activity on Libya, switch of position and the direction of the switch,
explanation of action on Libya, Kosovo committee, and Libya committee. Each chart is
accompanied by a paragraph explaining how the information was found. Most of this
information is in the public record and can be found easily with a simple internet search.
For ease of presentation, the data appear in a series of charts. The first is the basic
biographical information of each Senator. The second is the positions on Kosovo and Libya plus
any note of a position change. The third is Kosovo and Libya committee placements.
Biographical Information
Retirement dates were found using an internet search; the sources for each announcement can be
found in the bibliography.
Senator
Party
Akaka
Baucus
Bingaman
Boxer
Cochran
Collins
Conrad
Crapo
Durbin
Enzi
Feinstein
Grassley
Harkin
Hatch
Hutchison
Inhofe
Inouye
Johnson
Kerry
D
D
0
D
R
R
D
R
D
R
D
R
D
R
R
R
D
D
D
State
HI
MT
NM
CA
MS
ME
ND
ID
IL
WY
CA
IA
IA
UT
TX
OK
HI
SD
MA
Announced
Retirement
Mar 3,2011
Feb 8,2011
Jan 18,2011
Jan 13,2011
Senator
Kohl
Kyl
Landrieu
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lugar
McCain
McConnell
Mikulski
Murray
Reed
Reid
Roberts
Rockefeller
Schumer
Sessions
Shelby
Snowe
Wyden
89
Party
D
R
D
D
D
D/I
R
R
R
D
D
D
D
R
D
D
R
R
R
D
State
WI
AZ
LA
VT
MI
CT
IN
AZ
KY
MD
WA
RI
NV
KS
WV
NY
AL
AL
ME
OR
Announced
Retirement
May 13,2012
Feb 10,2011
Jan 19,2011
2012
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Appendix
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Position Information
Senator position was derived from a variety of sources for Libya. Searches of THOMAS, the
search engine of the Library of Congress, will find floor speeches and sponsored resolutions, as
well as list cosponsors and major actions on each resolution. Each Senator's homepage will turn
up press releases and, sometimes, floor speeches. Kosovo position was determined by the
Senator's vote on the McCain resolution ("Roll Call Vote on the Concurrent Resolution S. Con.
Res. 21"). Senators who took no discoverable action on Libya were given a zero.
Senator
Akaka
Baucus
Bingaman
Boxer
Cochran
Collins
Conrad
Crapo
Durbin
Enzi
Feinstein
Grassley
Harkin
Hatch
Hutchison
Inhofe
Inouye
Johnson
Kerry
Air Strikes Change in
in
Opinion
Kosovo?
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
(missing)
No
Yes
No
Yes
No
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
No
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Pos/Zero
Pos/Neg
Neg/Pos
(missing)
Pos/Zero
Neg/Zero
Pos/Neg
Pos/Zero
Pos/Zero
Libya
activity
Senator
0
-1
2
2
0
-1
0
-1
2
0
3
-2
1
-1
-3
-3
0
0
3
Kohl
Kyl
Landrieu
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lugar
McCain
McConnell
Mikulski
Murray
Reed
Reid
Roberts
Rockefeller
Schumer
Sessions
Shelby
Snowe
Wyden
90
Air Strikes Change in
Opinion
in
Kosovo?
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Pos/Neg
Zero/Pos
Pos/Zero
Pos/Zero
Pos/Neg
Pos/Neg
Pos/Zero
Pos/Zero
Pos/Zero
Pos/Zero
Pos/Neg
Pos/Neg
Libya
activity
0
3
0
0
3
3
-3
3
-2
0
0
2
2
-1
1
0
-2
0
-1
-1
Committee placement for Libya can be found by visiting any Senator's government homepage,
the URL for which is [senator's last name] .senate.gov (for example, akaka.senate.gov). Kosovo
committee information can be found at the congressional committee information page at
opensecrets.org. Select the desired committee and the appropriate Congress (the 106th, in the case
of Kosovo) to see the roster for each committee. Only the "relevant" committees are listed.
Senator
Akaka
Baucus
Bingaman
Kosovo
Committee
Govt Affairs
Libya
Committee
Govt Affairs
ArmSery
Boxer
ForeignRel
Cochran
Govt Affairs
Collins
Govt Affairs
Conrad
ForeignRel
ArmSery
Govt Affairs
Intelligence
Crapo
Durbin
Kosovo
Committee
Libya
Committee
ArmSery
GovtAffairs
Levin
Govt Affairs
ArmSery
Lieberman
Govt Affairs
ArmSery
ForeignRel
Intelligence
ArmSery
Govt Affairs
ArmSery
Govt Affairs
ForeignRel
Senator
Kohl
Kyl
Landrieu
Leahy
Lugar
McConnell
Intelligence
ArmSery
Govt Affairs
Intelligence
Mikulski
Intelligence
McCain
Govt Affairs
ForeignRel
Enzi
Feinstein
Intelligence
ArmSery
Murray
Grassley
Harkin
Reed
Reid
ArmSery
Hatch
Roberts
ArmSery
Hutchison
Inhofe
Rockefeller
Schumer
ArmSery
ArmSery
ForeignRel
Inouye
Sessions
Johnson
Shelby
Kerry
ForeignRel
ForeignRel
ArmSery
Intelligence
Intelligence
ArmSery
ArmSery
ArmSery
Intelligence
Snowe
Wyden
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Appendix B: Newspapers
The research design section explains how the newspaper data was discovered. The chart
below lists the Senator, the newspaper with the highest circulation in their state, and the number
of mentions of "Libya" in the specified timeframe. The website mondotimes.com was used to
find the newspaper with the highest circulation in each state and to find the precise circulation
numbers. The first table is in ascending order of number of mentions of Libya. The second table
includes circulation information to understand whether the size of the paper affects coverage of
international issues. It is sorted in ascending order of circulation. The graph that follows plots
"fixed mentions" as a function of circulation and clearly illustrates that there is no correlation
between the two variables.
Senator
Newspaper
Fixed
Mentions
Idaho Statesman
Crapo
0
Johnson
Sioux Falls Argus Leader
2
Jackson Clarion Ledger
Cochran
3
Casper Star Tribune
Enzi
4
Burlington Free Press
Leahy
7
Providence Journal
Reed
9
Portland Press Herald
Collins
12
Portland Press Herald
Snowe
12
Wichita Eagle
Roberts
17
Birmingham News
Sessions
17
Birmingham News
Shelby
17
Des Moines Register
Grassley
19
Des Moines Register
Harkin
19
Indianapolis
Star
Lugar
25
Chicago Tribune
Durbin
28
Albuquerque Journal
Bingaman
30
Las Vegas Review-Journal
Reid
39
Billings Gazette
Baucus
40
Courier-Journal
McConnell
47
Honolulu Star-Advertiser
Akaka
53
Honolulu Star-Advertiser
Inouye
53
The Arizona Republic
Kyl
55
The Arizona Republic
McCain
55
Conrad Forum of Fargo-Moorhead
73
Schumer
New York Daily News
73
Dallas Morning News
Hutchison
78
92
Mentions
Control
0
0
2
3
4
7
0
0
0
0
9
13
13
17
17
17
20
20
25
29
30
40
40
47
0
1
1
0
0
0
1
1
0
1
0
1
0
0
56
56
58
58
74
3
3
3
3
1
80
86
3
8
Kohl
Murray
Inhofe
Boxer
Feinstein
Levin
Lieberman
Kerry
Rockefeller
Mikulski
Landrieu
Wyden
Hatch
Newspaper
Fixed
Mentions
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
91
Seattle Times
96
The Oklahoman
129
LA Times
131
LA Times
131
Detroit Free Press
135
Hartford Courant
147
Boston Globe
154
Charleston Gazette
179
The Sun (Baltimore)
206
251
Times Picayune
254
Portland Oregonian
Salt Lake City Tribune
313
77
53
Average
Median
93
Mentions
Control
93
2
103
131
133
133
142
7
2
2
2
7
148
166
184
207
1
12
5
1
255
255
322
4
1
9
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Senator
••
••
••
••
••
••
••
••
••
••
••
••
••
••
••
••
••
••
••
••
••
••
Circulation Data
Senator
Enzi
Leahy
Johnson
Rockefeller
Baucus
Crapo
Conrad
Collins
Snowe
Cochran
Roberts
Bingam an
Sessions
Shelby
Grassley
Harkin
Hatch
Reed
Akaka
Inouye
Inhofe
Lieberman
Landrieu
McConnell
Mikulski
Lugar
Kohl
Kerry
Reid
Levin
Wyden
Murray
Kyl
McCain
Newspaper
Fixed
Mentions
Casper Star Tribune
4
Burlington Free Press
7
Sioux Falls Argus Leader
2
Charleston Gazette
179
Billings Gazette
40
Idaho Statesman
0
Forum of Fargo-Moorhead
73
Portland Press Herald
12
Portland Press Herald
12
Jackson Clarion Ledger
3
_
Wichita Eagle
17
Albuquerque Journal
30
Birmingham News
17
Birmingham News
17
Des Moines Register
19
Des Moines Register
19
Salt Lake City Tribune
313
Providence Journal
9
Honolulu Star-Advertiser
53
Honolulu Star-Advertiser
53
The Oklahoman
129
Hartford Courant
147
Times Picayune
251
Courier-Journal
47
The Sun (Baltimore)
206
Indianapolis Star
25
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
91
Boston Globe
154
Las Vegas Review-Journal
39
Detroit Free Press
135
Portland Oregonian
254
Seattle Times
96
The Arizona Republic
55
The Arizona Republic
55
94
Mentions
Control
Circulation
4
7
0
0
2
184
40
0
74
13
13
3
17
30
17
17
20
20
322
0
5
0
0
1
1
1
9
56
56
131
0
3
3
2
148
255
47
207
25
93
166
40
142
1
4
0
1
0
2
12
1
7
255
103
58
58
1
7
3
3
24,516
31,095
34,240
36,063
37,310
47,724
51,165
52,323
52,323
59,166
67,003
87,109
102,991
102,991
105,151
105,151
105,746
122,558
124,000
124,000
132,294
135,363
135,716
142,801
170,510
171,662
188,819
205,939
213,078
234,579
242,784
242,814
292,838
292,838
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
9
Newspaper
Hutchison
Durbin
Boxer
Feinstein
Schumer
Dallas Morning News
Chicago Tribune
LA Times
LA Times
Fixed
Mentions
78
28
131
131
73
New York Daily News
Mentions
Control
Circulation
86
29
133
133
8
1
2
2
80
3
409,642
425,370
572,998
572,998
605,677
Fixed Mentions (Y) as a Function of Circulation (in thousands)
320
O
280
O
O
240
O
200
O
160
O
O
O
O
120
O
80
O
O
O
00
O
40
4 6 4)
0
0
130
390
260
95
520
650
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Senator
••
••
Appendix C: Electoral College Maps13
•
•
•
1996 ELECTORAL COLLEGE
379
:159
Dintcin
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
411
•
•
IP
•
•
•
•
•
•
••
•
••
••
••
••
••
•
2' EzaorogVo Needed For 14aorty
20121200812094 200011996 1992:1988 1984 !IPSO 1976:1972
2008 ELECTORAL COLLEGE
365
O,ama
mcc.-173
MElerldeat Vetes Needed Fur Amity
RefeeqEtK;17.11S: 2012 :2006; 200412900 1996: 1992 1988 ; 1964 1980 1976: 1972
13
Both images are from RealClearPolitics.
96
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